Six Years

Hmmm. Yesterday marked my six-year blogiversary. I find that pretty hard to believe, but here's the evidence. That first blog post is also proof that I really did begin this blog with the intent of writing about telecommuting and connecting with other telecommuters. Somehow, I ended up connecting with all kinds of great book lovers instead (probably a far more fun and lively crowd). Actually, I know perfectly well how that happened. I found very few fellow telecommuters who were out there blogging like I was, so I began reading blogs that interested me, which were those that focused on books, and I started commenting on them. Soon, people (much to my surprise) were led to my blog through my comments.

I need to complete the 7 x 7 award meme, for which litlove tagged me ages ago, and which I thought I'd save for my blogiversary, but, as you can see, I don't seem to be doing it to mark the occasion. In providing the two links I've thus far provided in this blog post, I'm reminded that when I first started blogging, I didn't know how to link. I also didn't know what a meme was. Funny, how I eventually became the Queen o' Memes, thus dubbed by Hobs, who became a real life friend, but who abandoned his blog long ago (way too prematurely, as far as I'm concerned, but he had better things to do, I suppose).

That's my problem with both the 7 x 7 meme and celebrating the fact that I've been blogging for six years now. It's all so bittersweet for me. On the one hand, I've loved meeting and getting to know the people I never would have known if I hadn't started blogging, but it's been sad to see some disappear from the blogosphere altogether. I've also loved getting to know real life friends better through their blogs. However, I get this sad sort of ache when I think back on the days when I first began. Think about it: I was still living in Connecticut. Bob had just graduated from seminary. His father was still alive. We had no idea where we might be headed. I was yet to be laid off from a job I loved (I was all into math, remember?). I was yet to take a job at another company only to be laid off again.  On the one hand, six years isn't all that long. On the other hand, it's been a lifetime.

When I'm in a particularly melancholic frame of mind, I like to go back and reread blog posts from the early days (and even from the middle days). I'm often amazed at how much I've forgotten (and at my -- periodic -- ability to write really, really well. That bit always surprises me). I'm really glad I have this record. Then again, there are days when I ask myself "why?" Why am I glad to have this record? To tell you the truth, I don't have an answer to that question, except to say that some days it's less sad and more fun to reminisce, and I'm glad to have a tool that helps me do so.

I blog so seldom these days. I started 2012 with all kinds of plans to spend more time here, but they haven't materialized. It isn't because I don't want to blog. It's just that so many other things I want to do get in the way. Ironically, just when you'd think I'd have more time to spend with my blog, would want to spend time online, since I can do what I want instead of what I'm getting paid to do, now that I no longer telecommute, spending hours and hours a day working at the computer, I find I'm less inclined to go online. I'm reading more. I'm writing offline. I'm taking better care of my home. I'm loving a part-time job at my local library, and I'm spending more time exploring this place where I live, not to mention spending more time doing things at Bob's church. It's not bad, I suppose, just different from where I was 6 years ago. And, really, I suppose I should be thankful that I've moved on from 6 years ago. That's what we all want to do as we travel this road called Life, right? Doesn't mean, though, that as happy as I might be now, it isn't sometimes a bit sad to wade through the old posts and remember where I once was.

What about you? How does it feel when you look back over your blogging life?

Malevolent and Odious Ghosts

"... the ghost should be malevolent or odious: amiable and helpful apparitions are all very well in fairy tales or in local legends, but I have no use for them in a fictitious ghost story."

Amen to that! Guess, everyone. Who said it? Here's a HUGE hint: whenever I speak of ghost story writers, I mention him. He's my favorite. He was The Master. Nothing I write could ever compare to what he wrote, but he is always on my mind when I'm writing ghost stories.

At least, I hope he said it. It certainly sounds like something he'd say (who else would use the words "malevolent" and "odious" and "amiable" and "apparitions" all in the same sentence?), but, sad to say, I have no proof of it and am left trusting Zachary Graves, author of Ghosts: the Complete Guide to the Supernatural (Chartwell Books, 2011). I read books like this (which are never "complete" no matter what their titles would like you to believe) for inspiration for my own ghost story writing, and I've come to realize that their authors often do what Graves did here. He informed us that Montague Rhodes James ("M.R." to us friends) wrote that, but (shame on him) he doesn't tell us when nor where.  One has to suspect books that don't source their quotes and question why so many books about demons, ghosts, vampires, etc. seem to be in the habit of ignoring copyright laws, as well as studies that back up claims, but that's a subject for another blog post.

The subject of this post is what M.R. James seems to have said, and I so hope he really said it, because, well, he's my hero, and we hero-worshippers need very little encouragement when it comes to finding evidence that "He's so much like me!" But, really, someone please tell me: what is the point of a friendly ghost? Okay, I will admit I was once touched by some ghost story about a kind ghost who cared for some woman's young son who babbled from his crib about the man who visited him. The ghost ended up saving the son in some way, but I don't remember how, which shows, that (quite obviously) I wasn't touched enough to remember the key elements of the story.

I also have to admit that, yes, when I was a child, I got up at some ungodly hour to watch Casper every Saturday morning. Casper the Friendly Ghost, if I remember correctly, was the first in my siblings' and my Saturday morning cartoon line up. Again, if I remember correctly, I have a sneaky suspicion that one of the reasons I was so attracted to it had nothing to do with its content and more to do with the fact that we were (for some inexplicable reason. Maybe because my father loved to watch Bugs Bunny? Maybe because my parents wanted to lie in bed and read on Saturday mornings and not be bothered by us?) allowed to watch cartoons all morning on Saturdays. You have to understand that this was in a household in which we were barely allowed to watch television. The rest of the week, we were allowed 1/2 hour of television-viewing a day, with the exception of things we watched with my parents -- such exciting fare as the nightly news and "What's My Line?" But on Saturdays, glorious Saturdays, we were allowed to get up, fix ourselves big bowls of cereal, and plop down in front of the TV until late morning. Is it any wonder I was up by 6:00, just waiting for Casper? I think I tolerated this friendly ghost because of the other ghosts -- the scary ones -- who sometimes appeared (and one could always hope they would this time) and Wendy. I was never all that into witches, so a good little witch was no problem (besides, I'd seen The Wizard of Oz), and Wendy was a girl, all reasons to like her. Casper himself, though? Meh! What a little goody-goody, huh?

I was much happier with any ghost who appeared on the scene in my favorite Saturday morning cartoon Scooby Doo. Nothing held a candle to that show, not only because Scooby was cute and funny, but also because he and his pals had the sorts of adventures I longed to have. They just happened upon mysteriously haunted places every time they piled into the Mystery Machine and headed down the road. You could always count on that road to become an unpaved one, surrounded by dark trees sporting oddly-bent branches and rickety wooden road signs that read "Beware" and "Turn Back Now."Malevolent, odious ghosts, indeed, would occupy such terrain. Too bad the ghosts always turned out to be some greedy human who would've raked in a fortune had it not been for those "snoopy kids and their dog."

When I reached the age at which I started attending and hosting slumber parties, forget all that stupid talk of boys and prank phone calls, my #1 goal was to spend as much time telling ghost stories and scaring ourselves out of our wits. It helped that I lived in a house that had a mysterious tombstone (you can read my brother's take on that here and my take here) hidden in the crawl space off the basement. I could give "tours" of the "grave under our house," which guaranteed a wonderful atmosphere of horror that sequed into terrifying story telling that kept everyone up until dawn.

These days I like to think I don't scare so easily. Nonetheless, in my masochistic desire to be scared out of my wits, I want the ghosts in any story I read to be the sort of ghost James wanted in his stories.  An evil ghost, one that's come to drag me into the pits of hell with it, not one that's come to sing, "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands" with me. I want to walk down my basement stairs at night, push open the old wooden door that scrapes noisely along the floor of that part of the basement (the little room that should feature it's own "Beware!" and "Turn Back Now!" signs) and to be confronted with a floating skull, clacking it's teeth or a see-through child wielding an ax above her head. I do not want a chatty little golden-haired apparition here to bear witness to all the happiness and love that abounds in my life if only I'll acknowledge it (shouldn't that entity really be tagged an angel and not a ghost?).

Ghosts, from what I understand, should be creatures who died before their time -- violently. I will admit that they don't, necessarily. have to have it in for me. A sad woman carrying the arm her abusive husband severed with a saw, causing her to bleed to death, is fine. She can show up in my house, seeking revenge on her husband, and I'll probably help her. As a matter of fact, because I'm a chicken at heart, I'd much prefer any ghost I encounter to have it in for someone else and not me. I'm perfectly willing, goose-bumped, white-haired and all, to help some poor malevolent and odious apparition (in fact, let's make sure it's particularly odious, because I so love that word) do what it needs to do in order to "cross over." But a friendly ghost? He's on his own if he shows up in my house. Just like my good friend M.R. I have no use for helpful apparitions, most especially in any fictitious ghost story I might read or write.

But the Emperor Has No Clothes

A couple of months ago, I read yet another critically acclaimed contemporary novel that made me want to scream, "But the emperor has no clothes!" This one happens to be Bonnie Jo Campbell's Once Upon a River, which will probably be announced tomorrow as this year's Pulitzer Prize winner. I won't be surprised because I had to slog my way through it, which seems to be a pretty good indicator for something winning a major prize like the Pulitzer. I only slogged my way through it because it was on our list for the One Book One Community committee I'm on, and I felt it was my duty. I really wish I hadn't bothered. (Other members of the committee are not so diligent, gleefully announcing about some book they hated that they didn't bother wasting their time after the first 40 pages -- probably wise, given how many books we have to read.) I have to admit, though, that I often slog my way through such books, even when I have no call of duty, always hopeful that I'm going to find some redeeming quality, something that will make me think "So, that's what all the fuss is about!" I rarely do, and you'd think I'd learn, but I don't, and so I plod on until the bitter end and then want to throw the book across the room (or hit all the critics over the head with it).

Meanwhile, shortly after I read that catastrophe, I read a brilliant book that, as far as I can tell, has barely gotten any attention at all: Amor Towles's The Rules of Civility. In fact, I only discovered it because someone had returned it to our library, and I had to check it in and send it off to the other library in our system where it lives. I was immediately drawn to its cover (yes, I do judge a book by a cover, which is usually a better indicator than what the critics think of it). Shortly after I first saw it at the library, it, too, ended up on our One Book, One Community list. It's a wonderful rags-to-riches and riches-to-rags tale of Depression-era New York City, full of lovable characters, not the least of which is the city itself.

So, why does a book like Once Upon a River get picked up and carried around on all the critics' shoulders while a book like The Rules of Civility sits on the bench? I'm quite sure it's because contemporary critics like a certain mix of ingredients. In fact, take these ten ingredients, mix them up in any way you'd like, and you're bound to win some sort of literary prize.

1. The book must be grim. grim. grim. Avoid humor, levity at all costs. This is, of course, what will make it real, what will help you garner endorsements that say, "This gritty portrayal, reminiscent of a Greek tragedy, will make you question all you hold true about the grim realities of becoming a man in 21st-century America." The likes of Jane Austen, Anthony Trollope, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Mark Twain probably wouldn't be published today since readers might actually laugh at the things their characters do and say, and, you know, laughter is just so unreal.

2.  All settings must be bleak, and your characters must be uneducated and poor (another reason Trollope and Austen wouldn't be published today). If you're going to write about the American South, you must write about people living in shacks in Appalachia during a horrible drought when babies and beloved grandparents die from heat stroke. If you're writing about New York, you must write about those living in sub-standard tenement housing during the worst winter on record, babies and beloved grandparents freezing to death. Writing about London? Your characters are squatting in squalor. You get the picture, which has not even a slight hint of a bright color anywhere.

3. If you're writing a coming of age novel (why do I say "if"? It is, of course, a coming of age novel), and your main character is female, it's no longer enough for her to deal with the fact that she was orphaned at age 14. No, not only was she orphaned at age 14, but she was also sent to live with the uncle who has been sexually abusing her since she was three. She will go on to be raped at least three times by three other men before she is 21. She will also wind up pregnant. Oh, and yes, the boyfriend who got her pregnant is an abusive drug addict. Despite all she goes through, make sure that even your most empathetic readers won't really care less what happens to her by the end of the book.

4. If your main character is male, he either never knew his father, or his father is a drunk who is more absent than present and who "loves" with his fists. This boy's a wise-beyond-his-years high school dropout with a vocabulary that belies this status but who still manages to do so many stupid things that he is certainly headed for prison, especially since he thinks nothing of fighting back with his own fists. Provide a great hope that he might turn out differently from his father -- here's an idea: some kind, idealistic man who takes him under his wing and gives him the chance to live somewhere else. Or, even  better, a girl from a loving family who thinks he can be saved -- then yank that hope away as painfully as possible, so that, by the end of the book, your "hero" has become a clone of his father. Your last sentence might read, "The prison door echoed as it slammed behind him."

5. Mix up your tenses as much as you can. Write in the present tense and the past tense. Write in the future tense, too, if it makes sense (and even if it doesn't. If it doesn't, the critics are sure to think that you are deep and clever beyond all imagining, especially if you are a "bright young thing").

6. Likewise, mix up your narrative voice. Switch back and forth between first-person and third-person narrative, especially if you've begun with the first-person but need to explain something your narrator couldn't possibly know. Apparently, unlike me (who might be so cruel as to judge you a lazy writer), the critics will marvel at your "clever use of voice."

7. Get your characters to provide all kinds of lengthy background information via dialogue, because, you know, we all talk like this, "Well, cousin, as you will recall, your sister went off to New York when you were six years old. If only she'd stayed home where she belonged. You were too young to receive the phone calls all about Ronnie this and Ronnie that, but your poor mother was beside herself with worry over that guy, who, of course, turned out to be a drug dealer. If only Suzie hadn't gone to New York, we wouldn't be sitting in this rehab center today." The critics aren't bothered by such dialogue. Maybe they talk this way. Maybe they're also in the habit of explaining things to people's siblings that shouldn't need explaining.

8. Hit your readers over the head with symbolism. When your 16-year-old protagonist decides to tell her 36-year-old boyfriend she's pregnant, make sure you open the scene with a description of the fried egg breakfast she's cooking him, something like, "She watched the clear liquid turn to white and take shape, hoping she wouldn't overcook the yolks and wondering how he would take the news." A mother cat nursing kittens would be a good addition to such a scene. If your young male hero is headed for a life in prison, send him to a dog fight where he witnesses poor, weak dogs, stuck in their small crates, destined to die.

9. Make sure there are elements in your book that will encourage critics to compare it to classics. For instance, you can set it on a river (any river, apparently. It doesn't even matter if it's not the same one) a la Bonnie Jo Campbell, and it will draw "inevitable" (at least, according to one critic I read) comparisons to Huckleberry Finn. Set your book in an English village, and you will be a 21st-century Austen. Write about a teenaged boy, even a deaf, dumb, and blind one lost in Mongolia, and he's bound to draw comparisons to Holden Caulfield. Then again, if he's blind, he might be Oedipus. Don't make him blind. Caulfield is "edgier" than Oedipus, and you, of course, must be "edgy" (a favorite word amongst the critics).

10. Finally, most important of all: make sure your ending is ambiguous. Do not tie anything up -- or even together -- if you can possibly help it. The more you can make the reader think, "Huh?" the better. Besides, the more ambiguous it is, the easier it will be to write the sequel.

That's it: Emily's recipe for an award-winning book. Please let me know if I've missed some killer ingredient that will make it even better. I'm off to eat some dessert. Sophie Kinsella (who is actually an excellent writer and never pretends to be anything she isn't), anyone?

GRRR!

Okay, so things are changing in the blogosphere, and I just don't like it. First of all, Planet Blogger has changed it's "compose" page, and I'm not real fond of the new look and format. Maybe I'll get used to it, but, really, I don't know why a change was necessary. As far as I can tell, nothing new has been added, and I don't like having to go to the right-hand column to do things like label my posts. I liked the old composition page much better, with things like "scheduling" and "labels" down at the bottom of the post area. In fact, in the old format, you didn't even have to click on "labels," you could just type them right in. Why, Blogger, add that extra, unnecessary click? But, right now, this new format is just a little annoyance, and I can deal with it and will, probably, one day, even get used to it.

More problematic has been what's happened to me over on Planet Wordpress. Sometime last year, when commenting on all the blogs I like to read on that planet of many marvelous thoughts and ideas, I discovered that my signature image was just whatever random design was assigned to me at that particular day and hour. I didn't like this, so I went on to Gravatar to create my own image for my Wordpress comments, a cute little frog prince that some of you might recognize. I have to admit that I probably contributed to my own problems on Planet Wordpress by establishing a second home there, the blog I write for my library as PV Reader. This means that unless I remember to step out of that lovely home and lock the door, any comments I make on any blogs come up as comments being made by PV Reader and not by Emily Barton. Still, this was never a huge problem, because most of you know that PV Reader and Emily Barton are one and the same. Of course, PV Reader's images, when she comments, are randomly chosen designs, but she tries to comment so rarely that I'm not too bothered by that.

The huge problem surfaced about two weeks ago, when I suddenly discovered that the Wordpress government was holding my Emily Barton i.d. hostage. I could still leave my PV Reader home, but if I wanted to visit anyone else, I had to do so as PV Reader, or remain silent. I could no longer log on as Emily Barton with my Telecommuter Talk URL. Apparently, long ago (so long ago I honestly don't remember creating it), I created a blog called "WorldCitizenshipChallenge" on Planet Wordpress, using my Planet Blogger (located in the Google Galaxy) email address. Despite the fact that I had set up my Gravatar account with the Telecommuter Talk URL, which has worked fine for me ever since I set it up, I was told that my email address was already associated with some other Wordpress home and that I needed to either log into that or log into Gravatar in order to comment on blogs as anything other than PV Reader.

Did I ask the Wordpress government to do this? No. So, why did it suddenly become important to link me to some crumbling, empty home that is probably haunted with the sorts of ghosts I don't like? Especially since getting rid of my connections to that house was damn difficult to do. Until recently, I'd been on such friendly terms with the Wordpress government, their allowing me to comment in their realm, despite being from a different planet, and we'd been running along so smoothly. Now, suddenly, Frog Prince Emily Barton had been exiled from Planet Wordpress.

Seems the only thing to do, despite my opposition to war and violence, was to blow up the old World Citizenship Challenge home. Still not sure that worked, though. The Wordpress government still seems to be keeping an eye on me and trying to figure out if I have secret associations with a home that no longer exists.

What I'm Listening to Now: Wrecking Ball

OMG! It's BRUCE! Bruce as you remember him, a vital member of the "Pit Crew" (or whatever the equivalent cheering section of your high school basketball team was), the guy who was singing "Born to Run" at that party where you got drunk for the very first time, the one who was crooning in the background when you finally made out with that guy (or gal, as the case may be) in the back seat of his newly-acquired, second-hand Honda Accord (or the back seat of your parents' station wagon. Whatever...). He's the same Bruce who followed you to college where you and your roommate decided "I'm on Fire" was one of the sexiest songs ever written and where you laughed at the buffoons who thought "Born in the USA" was a testament to Ronald-Reagan-style "patriotism."

He grew up with you, became politically aligned with you (or maybe it was that you became politically aligned with him). He protested the Iraq War with you, voted for our first Black American president with you, and now, all. of. a. sudden, you and he are back in high school again -- you, desperately wishing you could go to Asbury Park with him, even (shhh! Don't tell anybody!) wishing you were from New Jersey, and he with that familiar deep voice, those familiar guitar strings and piano keys and jingle bell sound. Which is not to say that this latest album of his isn't new and fresh.

One of the things that's always amazed me about Bruce Springsteen is that, no matter how distinct his sound, he is always evolving. He adds new instruments (bagpipes, for instance here), new sounds, goes back to his roots and shoots forward to a time we've yet to encounter (good old rock 'n' roll infused with something that steals itself from the rap music of today). This one, more than any of his other recent efforts, however, takes me back to a time when Springsteen on the turntable meant even wallflowers were pulled up from their seats and onto the dance floor. I want to dance. I want to stomp. I want to romp around the room when I listen to it. It's like being in an Irish Pub with or without the beer. And when you've been romping and stomping and sweating up a storm, here comes the ballad that causes everyone to raise mugs high and to sway.

That's what the music does. What the lyrics do is make me want to shout, "Rock on, Bruce!" Pay attention to them. Here, we have an angry Bruce (who says only young men get to be angry?). He's angry at what this country has become. Angry at corporate America. Angry about the death of "my hometown."Angry about all the things that make me angry and that should make all Americans angry, if only they'd wake up out of this country-wide stupor that has so many under its spell and take notice.

No unbiased review here, or seeking out something to criticize. I just love it. I unapologetically love it. If you're a Springsteen fan and haven't bought it yet, do. You won't regret it. I promise.

Two Challenges: Classics 2012 (Continued) and Once Upon a Time VI

Sophocles. Fitts, Dudley and Fitzgerald, Robert, tr., eds. The Oedipus Cycle. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1976.

(This English translation was originally published in 1939, and I see it's been reprinted since the version I have, because the cover image I found for it -- left -- is completely different.)

This collection of Sophocles's three Oedipus plays (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone) was my third read for the 2012 Classics Challenge. As luck would have it, I chose two classics that would actually fit into Carl's Once Upon a Time VI challenge. If I'd been thinking, I would have saved this one for that, but I (as is so often the case) wasn't thinking. I still have another title that works well for both challenges, but more on that in a moment. For now, let's look at the March prompts given to us by November's Autumn, who is hosting this challenge. She chose to focus on setting this month (appropriate, since these three plays are so often referred to as Sophocles's "Theban Plays"). I've finished the book so will participate at all three levels.

Level 1

How has the author introduced the setting? What does it tell you about the character? About the time period? What is the mood of the setting?

The author introduces the setting, first very briefly by describing Oedipus's palace and the people gathered in front of it, bringing sacrifices as if to a god. We learn more when the chorus sings of the woes of Thebes, of which Oedipus is king. Despite the fact that very little is said about the physical aspects of the place, all the people are despairing, because they have been suffering for a long time, plagued by illness and drought and war. What the setting tells us about Oedipus is that he's a bit clueless (something he will continue to be), questioning why his people are so desperate. The second play is actually set in Colonus, a place that doesn't seem much happier, where Oedipus goes with Antigone after running from Thebes. Oedipus and Antigone are immediately reproached for resting on sacred ground but are allowed to stay, adding a bit of false hope to the tragedy. The third play is back in dusty, despairing Thebes, where it's so dry, Antigone has quite a time of it trying to bury her brother.

Level 2

How do you envision it? Find a few images or describe it. Do you feel the setting is right? Or was it a weak point of the author?

This is how I envision Thebes: a bleak, dusty, dry, and rocky place. The buildings are made of pale stones -- grays and tans -- and there isn't much color, except the blue, blue sky. People walk around with the dust of the city embedded in their feet, impossible to clean, and they try very hard to find relief from the hot sun. The setting is perfect for the three stories (who can argue with an Ancient Greek?).

Level 3

If this particular setting were changed, how would it affect the course of the story?

I'm having a little fun imagining what might have happened had Oedipus remained in Athens. What if he had never gone to Thebes? He might never have killed his father or married his mother. He might just have been a Nobody King, or maybe he would have been some tyrant, some horrible king, known for killing babies instead of his father. If he'd stayed in Athens, the world of modern psychology would be turned upside down: what would Sigmund Freud have done without Oedipus?!

And now we go from "what if? to "Once Upon a Time" with (I can't believe it) the sixth annual

Once Upon a Time Challenge

I used to read about this challenge every year, but last year, I finally decided to join in, and I had so much fun (the number 1 rule of the challenge, so I've followed that one well) that I'm back again this year. If you've been reading my blog for the nearly six years I've been keeping it, you know that I love snow and that winter happens to be my favorite season. Spring is always a bit of a sad season for me, not that I don't love all the buds and birds and flowers and a gorgeous, warm spring day as much as the next guy, but I hate the fact that it's a sign that the long, horrible, hot, muggy days of summer are just around the corner. Now, however, I've got this challenge to look forward to, something to make spring even brighter, even on days like today, when the sun keeps changing its mind about whether or not it's going to come out. What better way to get my mind off the impending wretchedness of summer than immersing myself in times and places, long, long ago?

This year, I am taking on Quest the First. The instructions are as follows:

Read at least 5 books that fit somewhere within the Once Upon a Time categories. They might all be fantasy, or folklore, or fairy tales, or mythology…or your five books might be a combination from the four genres.

And these are the 5 books I've chosen:

The Arabian Nights (folk tales, although I believe some -- or all -- could also be described as fairy tales? I haven't read them, but I'll see what I think once I do) -- Husain Haddawy

This is the one that I'm also reading for the Classics Challenge and one I've been wanting to read, oh, for about 20 or so years now.

Lyonesse (fantasy) -- Jack Vance

I've been reading and loving Vance's Tales of the Dying Earth, sent me by a friend who never fails when it comes to sending me good things to read. The same friend also sent me this one, about the kingdom of Lyonesse and its ruthless, ambitious king who plans to arrange a marriage for his beautiful daughter that will benefit the kingdom (and its king, of course). She defies him and is confined to her beloved garden where she finds her love but also, apparently, her tragedy. Doesn't that sound fabulous? Yeah, I think so, too.

Magic Study (fantasy) -- Maria V. Snyder

Maria V. Snyder is really, maybe, just chick lit disguised as fantasy. Then again, maybe not. I got hooked reading the first in this series, Poison Study, and there's a little more there than what appears on the surface. Our heroine Yelena is back in this novel, returned to Sitia, her place of birth, where she will study the magic she recently discovered she possesses and will also become the target of some rogue magician, intent on making her his next victim.

The Hobbit (fantasy) -- J. R. R. Tolkien

I don't need to tell you what this one is about. Everyone has read it but me. I'm feeling hopeful. Maybe this will be the year I read, get, and fall in love with Tolkien. And if I do, maybe that will bode well for a beautiful summer, full of warm days, soft rain, and very little heat and humidity. We'll see...

The King Must Die (mythology) -- Mary Renault

Thanks to Zoë's Mom, I recently came home with a copy of The Hunger Games, which she and Ms. Musings assure me I'll like (and I'm quite sure they're right. For some reason, I've got it in my head that it's going to be a cross between Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery and Scott Westerfield's The Uglies). Bob took one look at it and said, "You must read The King Must Die first." So, I'm reading The King Must Die first even though I don't quite understand the connection. Nevertheless, it looks absolutely terrific, given that it's about Theseus, which means it's about the labyrinth and the Minotaur. Did I ever tell you how much I love the labyrinth and the Minotaur (a love affair that was solidified when I read Jorge Luis Borges's Labyrinths in college. As a matter of fact, that one is due for a reread. Maybe I'll do that after I read The Hunger Games)?

Looks like it's gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny sort of a spring, doesn't it?

The Meme Continues

It seems most who've answered my 11 questions meme would like to see my answers, and Ms. Musings tagged me to answer her own questions, so here are both.

Answers to My Own Questions

1. Have you ever liked a movie more than the book? If so, what movie(s)?

Yes, before legal thrillers were a dime a dozen, and no one had ever heard of some new guy named John Grisham, I read a book called The Firm, which kept me absolutely riveted from beginning to end. When the movie came out, I was sure it wouldn't be as good as the book, especially since it starred Tom Cruise. I was wrong. I can't remember why (we're talking nearly twenty years ago now), but I distinctly remember thinking that some changes had been made for the movie version that made it even better than the book.

2. ________ opening for __________ would be a dream concert. Fill in the blanks. (You can fill them in with performers dead or alive.)

Jamie Cullum. Ella Fitzgerald. And then I hope they would come onto stage and do a few numbers together.

3. If you're making dinner and don't need to take into account anyone else's tastes but your own, what do you find yourself having over and over again?

Fried egg on toast, or baked beans on toast, or (if I'm really being fancy and decadent) fried egg and baked beans on toast.

4. You get to interview the author of the book you are reading right now. What's the first question you'd ask?

I'm (as usual) reading several books at once, but I will ask Lawrence LeShan, author of How to Meditate: Am I ever going to get to the point at which I can focus and keep my mind from wandering all over the place? (I've been trying fifteen minutes a day for three weeks now without much success at all.)

5. If the world becomes one in which all new novels are only published in digital format, what will you miss most?

Going to bookstores and browsing the new book shelves to see what (if anything) strikes my fancy. I do judge books by their covers, and digital covers are completely unsatisfying.

6. If you had been gifted to play any musical instrument brilliantly, what would you choose to play? (Or maybe you are so-gifted. If so, what do you play?)

The banjo. It's just such a fun, happy instrument.

7. The "war between the sexes" has been around since the beginning of time. What do you think is the biggest problem between the sexes today?

The fact that we still raise our children in ways that adhere to traditional sex roles. We're getting better, but we have a lo-o-ng way to go, and I'd say we've gone backwards since the 1970s, and Free to Be You and Me, what with all this focus on princesses and fairies and pink and lavender for girls these days, not to mention seven-year-olds being encouraged to wear tight-fitting, cleavage-baring clothes for their non-existent cleavage.

8. If you could switch places with any celebrity for three months, with whom would you like to switch places?

Nigella Lawson. I want to be able to cook like her. I want her kitchen. I want to write like she does (and to write for such publications as The New York Times). And I want to look like her. If I didn't love her so much, I would hate her.

9. You can eat at any restaurant in the world. Where would you eat?

The Hanapepe Cafe and Espresso Bookstore. Books, delicious coffee, fabulous food. What more could you ask for? Oh yeah, it's in Kauai, HI.

10. What book do you wish you hadn't wasted your time reading last year?

Heaven is for Real. That one very nearly did in this curious cat, who wonders just how many lives she has left to waste on books that pique her curiosity because she can't believe so many people are actually reading them and taking them seriously.

11. Would you like me to answer all these questions myself?

I think I've answered this one.

Answers to Ms. Musing's Questions

1. How do you mark the end of the week and the beginning of the weekend?

Since I work part-time, often on Saturdays and am married to a minister, my "weekend" is very different from most, basically it consists of Sunday afternoon and Monday. I typically mark it by coming home from church, changing into something extremely comfortable, eating lunch, and spending the afternoon reading before having some sort of "date" with Bob, whether that's going to dinner or a movie or just staying in and playing games.

2. What is your idea of luxury?

A day spent in bed, alone, with a good book.

3. Tell me a book, a drink, and a food that all complement each other.

Amor Towles's The Rules of Civility, a martini (or anything made with gin), and crackers with some sort of really delicious aged cheese.

4. What is one thing you love about the house (flat, apartment, yurt, whatever) and one thing you would change?

I love almost everything about it: the fact that it's over a hundred years old, its high ceilings, its hard-wood floor, its cool molding, it's large front porch, the large walk-up attic. It's a fabulous house.

I would change its horrible, horrible location: right on an extremely busy highway, traveled day and night by noisy tractor trailers, which makes the front porch impossible to use. There are so many gorgeous places in this county where I would happily pick it up and plop it down, if only I could.

5. What is something about yourself that you have made peace with?

I will never tan; that creamy, white skin can be beautiful, too (I mean, look at Nicole Kidman), no matter what the fashion industry wants us to believe; and that it is much better to stay out of the sun than to burn myself and risk skin cancer.

6. If you're browsing in a real-world bookshop, what will make you pick up a book that you've never heard of by an author you're not familiar with?

a. The cover

b. The fact that it's on a "staff recommends" shelf or has some sort of "staff-recommended" blurb associated with it

7. If you could (or do) have it your way, what's your decorating style (plain, fancy, girlie, austere, classic...?)

Definitely classic. Visit Pierpont Morgan's library in NYC (the part that was his). Antiques, leather, wood, huge fire place, wall-to-wall books. That's what I want (unfortunately, I don't have the money for that sort of thing).

8. What never fails to cheer you up?

Reading Three Men in a Boat (preferably outside, on a gorgeous day, by some body of water, with multiple glasses of fresh and icy cold lemonade).

9. What are you going to do when you retire that you don't have time for now?

Bake my own bread. In fact, bake in general. I also hope to learn about wild flowers and trees, hiking all those trails in Maine.

10. Given the chance, which house in literature would you move into and why?

The brownstone in NYC that Elizabeth Enright's Melendy family lived in in The Saturdays, because it was obviously conveniently located to anything the kids wanted to do (museums, opera, Central Park, etc.), while also being a typical brownstone, with its multiple floors (I'm a fan of multiple floors). I would also like to have the country home the family moves into in The Four-Story Mistake, because it's another dream house, with its cupola and secret rooms and nooks and crannies (and, of course, multiple floors). It was probably in Westchester County somewhere, but once I moved to Connecticut, I liked to think it was in Connecticut.

11. What don't you wear, not because it doesn't suit you, but because you don't think you're the sort of person who wears that style/colour/a poncho?

Long, tight dresses with plunging necklines and slits up to the hip. I don't have the right sort of curves, and I'm not a movie star and will never be on stage receiving an Oscar. Also, if I need tape to keep myself inside anything, I'm not going to wear it.