I didn't want to do a complete before/after posting on Eragon for various reasons, one of them being that I never got around to reading the 2 other books in the trilogy, and I believe that a book that is part of a trilogy should be considered in the context of its companion books. Nevertheless, I wanted to say a few words about this novel that flared up in popularity a few years ago, and then virtually disappeared.
From a completely objective point of view, it's hard to find that much praise for the novel Eragon, which would perhaps be better classified as a long bit of fanfiction combining Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, with a little Harry Potter thrown in. The plot should sound very familiar: Eragon, a Luke Skywalker/Frodo Baggins/Harry Potter combo, is suddenly taken from his safe but boring life with his uncle Garrow, an Uncle Owen type, in Carvahall, a Tatooine/Shire combo, and is plunged into a far more exciting world when he discovers the egg of a powerful blue dragon named Saphira. During the adventure on which he consequently embarks, Eragon is mentored by Brom, a Ben Kenobi/Gandalf combo, befriends Murtagh, a Han Solo/Aragorn combo, and falls in love with Arya, a Princess Leia/Arwen combo. Eragon learns the ways of the Jedi-like Dragon Riders and fights with baddies, namely "the Empire" (no joke). The writing quality is passable, but punctuated at times with rather cheesy, awkward phrases such as "Not selling to me would be a very bad idea" (p. 20).
Despite all this, however, I can't help but have a soft spot in my heart for Eragon. Perhaps it's because the author, Christopher Paolini, wrote the novel when he was only 16 years old--and when I was 16, my life too could pretty much be described by two phrases: The Lord of the Rings books and movies, and Star Wars 4,5, and 6. I can't entirely hate Eragon, because it is just the kind of novel I would have like to have written. When I was 16, I visualized countless versions of Star Wars Episode 7, many of them starring myself as Hannah, the angsty teenage daughter of Han and Leia, who yearned to accomplish heroic deeds but was constantly frusterated by her apparent lack of Jedi powers. My old laptop is filled with Word files of unfinished LOTR-like stories, all beginning with things like, "Along the narrow, icy mountain pass, a dark-haired traveler was walking along" and "In the ancestral hall of the ancient castle, the young prince lifted his father's sword for the very first time." I ranted about the degredation of the newer 1,2,3 SW episodes and obsessively analyzed LOTR movie-book continuity. I dressed up as a Jedi for Halloween and yes, I wore a replica of The One Ring on a chain around my neck. I had a pretty boring adolescence in some ways, but these two trilogies were a steady source of excitement for me, and at times, even a source of purpose as they caused me to ponder things like heroism, sacrifice, redemption, and the battle between good and evil.
Today, with a few years of cynicism between me and my teenage self, I have to confess that I am no longer such a devoted fan of LOTR and SW as I once was. It's not that anything happened to make me dislike the trilogies; but things happened to get in the way and crowd them out. Not all of it was bad; for instance, I now enjoy a much broader range of fandom, including such various things as detective novels, Jane Austen, and film noir. However, the single-minded devotion I felt towards those trilogies is something I don't think I can ever have again. But I hope that one day, when I am much older, I'll take out my old DVDs (if they're even using DVDs by then) and watch both sets all the way through, marathon-style. I hope that then, I'll still remember what it was like to be 16, when the meaning of life could be summed up by a cute guy wielding a sword or a light saber (or even a blaster--because Han Solo was DEFINITELY the best-looking guy in either trilogy--sorry Orlando-Bloom-devotees). And I hope the same remembrance comes true for Christopher Paolini (minus the Han Solo thing). Sure, a 40-year-old Christopher may cringe upon re-reading Eragon. But ultimately, his novel contains an innocence that should be treasured, because it only comes once in a lifetime.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Many Waters (AFTER)
There are a lot of ways to look at this book, obviously, but one of the things that really permeates the entire work is the use of allusions to various things. For instance:
-the Unicorn myth
In Many Waters, Sandy and Dennys's ability to travel across space-time on the backs of "virtual" unicorns is dependent upon 2 things: 1) their belief in the unicorns and 2) their virginity. A fact which reveals the truly malicious nature of Tiglah's temptations: if the boys had succumbed to her charms, they would never have been able to leave the antidiluvian world, even to escape from the flood. In a sense, their story reflects that of Noah and his family; Noah is given an ark because of his righteousness, the boys are given unicorns because of their sexual purity. However, did Madeliene L'Engle come up with the associations between unicorns and purity herself? Actually, she is borrowing it from a very old tradition, which states that a unicorn will come trustingly to a young virgin girl and lay his head in her lap. (For instance, in T.H. White's The Once and Future King, a King Arthur retelling, Gawaine and his brothers use a young kitchen maid [actually named Meg] to attempt to catch a unicorn.) This symbolism has always struck me as odd, because there is definitely something Freudian about the unicorn's single horn, but there you have it.
-the Nephilim
According to the Bible, "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them." (Genesis 6:4)
-The Biblical story of Noah and his family
Many Waters implies a solid plot structure that is used in many fantasy stories about children: the children enter a magical world/dimension, usually by (seemingly) accidental means, experience some initial denial/fright/danger/hardship, eventually accomplish something good for the magical world, grow and improve in some way, and afterwards return to their own dimension to find everything but themselves unchanged, often experiencing a "did it really happen?" moment. (Other stories with this structure or close variants thereof include Knight's Castle by Edward Eager, The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, and several of C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia books.) However, the sense of completion this circular structure usually conveys is counterbalanced in Many Waters' case by a deep sense of incompletion; or, more accurately, a sense of a story beyond the story. There's certainly something very metafictional about Sandy and Dennys' frequent discussions of whether or not certain characters, including themselves, are "in the story" (i.e. the Biblical account). The way in which the "virtual unicorns" constantly flicker in and out of being reflects the complex and often shaky position which reality holds in Many Waters. To what extent is anything in the adventure even happening? Did Sandy and Dennys literally get sent back in time? Or is the entire adventure merely a simulation projected by their father's computer program? We aren't told in the story, and Sandy and Dennys may never know.
Another area in which we feel incompletely informed regards the nature of the people in the oasis. According to the Biblical account, God sent a destructive flood on the earth because "The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain" (Genesis 6:5-6). However, the only "wickedness" the twins directly encounter while in the oasis is attempted seduction, stubbornness, kidnapping, and getting thrown in a garbage pit--the last 3 admittedly not much fun for the twins, but hardly enough, it seems, to warrant divine judgment on such a vast scale. How does one explain this apparrent contradiction? In my opinion, the God, or "El," of Many Waters is not a cruel, wanton force acting on a whim--although His ways are undoubtedly mysterious. For instance, El talks closely to characters such as Noah and Lamech, and saves Yalith from the flood by "taking her up", presumably to Heaven, in a manner similar to the story of Enoch. Why then does He send the flood? Was Sandy and Dennys' experience in the oasis merely an exceptionally sheltered one? This is the explanation I like; I think many more nefarious things are taking place in the oasis world of which we are given only glimpses--for instance, how much of a perversion is it for the nephilim to sleep with and marry the humanoid people? The mysterious great sin in the oasis world seems to lie with the nephilim, who have symbolically demonic names and can shape-shift into predatory or traditionally "unclean" animals.
-the Unicorn myth
In Many Waters, Sandy and Dennys's ability to travel across space-time on the backs of "virtual" unicorns is dependent upon 2 things: 1) their belief in the unicorns and 2) their virginity. A fact which reveals the truly malicious nature of Tiglah's temptations: if the boys had succumbed to her charms, they would never have been able to leave the antidiluvian world, even to escape from the flood. In a sense, their story reflects that of Noah and his family; Noah is given an ark because of his righteousness, the boys are given unicorns because of their sexual purity. However, did Madeliene L'Engle come up with the associations between unicorns and purity herself? Actually, she is borrowing it from a very old tradition, which states that a unicorn will come trustingly to a young virgin girl and lay his head in her lap. (For instance, in T.H. White's The Once and Future King, a King Arthur retelling, Gawaine and his brothers use a young kitchen maid [actually named Meg] to attempt to catch a unicorn.) This symbolism has always struck me as odd, because there is definitely something Freudian about the unicorn's single horn, but there you have it.
-the Nephilim
According to the Bible, "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them." (Genesis 6:4)
-The Biblical story of Noah and his family
Many Waters implies a solid plot structure that is used in many fantasy stories about children: the children enter a magical world/dimension, usually by (seemingly) accidental means, experience some initial denial/fright/danger/hardship, eventually accomplish something good for the magical world, grow and improve in some way, and afterwards return to their own dimension to find everything but themselves unchanged, often experiencing a "did it really happen?" moment. (Other stories with this structure or close variants thereof include Knight's Castle by Edward Eager, The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, and several of C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia books.) However, the sense of completion this circular structure usually conveys is counterbalanced in Many Waters' case by a deep sense of incompletion; or, more accurately, a sense of a story beyond the story. There's certainly something very metafictional about Sandy and Dennys' frequent discussions of whether or not certain characters, including themselves, are "in the story" (i.e. the Biblical account). The way in which the "virtual unicorns" constantly flicker in and out of being reflects the complex and often shaky position which reality holds in Many Waters. To what extent is anything in the adventure even happening? Did Sandy and Dennys literally get sent back in time? Or is the entire adventure merely a simulation projected by their father's computer program? We aren't told in the story, and Sandy and Dennys may never know.
Another area in which we feel incompletely informed regards the nature of the people in the oasis. According to the Biblical account, God sent a destructive flood on the earth because "The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain" (Genesis 6:5-6). However, the only "wickedness" the twins directly encounter while in the oasis is attempted seduction, stubbornness, kidnapping, and getting thrown in a garbage pit--the last 3 admittedly not much fun for the twins, but hardly enough, it seems, to warrant divine judgment on such a vast scale. How does one explain this apparrent contradiction? In my opinion, the God, or "El," of Many Waters is not a cruel, wanton force acting on a whim--although His ways are undoubtedly mysterious. For instance, El talks closely to characters such as Noah and Lamech, and saves Yalith from the flood by "taking her up", presumably to Heaven, in a manner similar to the story of Enoch. Why then does He send the flood? Was Sandy and Dennys' experience in the oasis merely an exceptionally sheltered one? This is the explanation I like; I think many more nefarious things are taking place in the oasis world of which we are given only glimpses--for instance, how much of a perversion is it for the nephilim to sleep with and marry the humanoid people? The mysterious great sin in the oasis world seems to lie with the nephilim, who have symbolically demonic names and can shape-shift into predatory or traditionally "unclean" animals.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Many Waters (BEFORE)
Many Waters, by Madeline L'Engle
http://www.amazon.com/Many-Waters-Madeleine-LEngle/dp/0312368577/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250706132&sr=8-1
(I'm a HUGE L'Engle fan, so this preview may be a little biased!)
In MANY WATERS, book 4 in the Time Quintet series, L'Engle once again utilizes her customary blend of myth and science, simplicity and depth to create another intensely beautiful tale about the Murray family, this time starring the "normal" twins, Sandy and Dennys. There is less tessering action in this one and the plot can consequently feel a little slow at times, but hey! It's Madeline L'Engle, what's not to like? The setting is a bleak antediluvian desert, but the story sparkles with color through L'Engle's descriptions of the various skin, hair, and eye tones of the story's characters, as well as the quintessential L'Engle star passages. I'm totally in love with Calvin O'Keefe from A Wrinkle in Time, so I was saddened by the lack of a Calvin Factor in this book, but it was still great to see the Murray twins fleshed out more and to find that even they are not so ordinary as they first appear. There are definitely more adult themes in this one than the other Time Quintet's, but they are handed in what I felt was a very tasteful manner.
http://www.amazon.com/Many-Waters-Madeleine-LEngle/dp/0312368577/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250706132&sr=8-1
(I'm a HUGE L'Engle fan, so this preview may be a little biased!)
In MANY WATERS, book 4 in the Time Quintet series, L'Engle once again utilizes her customary blend of myth and science, simplicity and depth to create another intensely beautiful tale about the Murray family, this time starring the "normal" twins, Sandy and Dennys. There is less tessering action in this one and the plot can consequently feel a little slow at times, but hey! It's Madeline L'Engle, what's not to like? The setting is a bleak antediluvian desert, but the story sparkles with color through L'Engle's descriptions of the various skin, hair, and eye tones of the story's characters, as well as the quintessential L'Engle star passages. I'm totally in love with Calvin O'Keefe from A Wrinkle in Time, so I was saddened by the lack of a Calvin Factor in this book, but it was still great to see the Murray twins fleshed out more and to find that even they are not so ordinary as they first appear. There are definitely more adult themes in this one than the other Time Quintet's, but they are handed in what I felt was a very tasteful manner.
Monday, August 17, 2009
A Different Kind of Book List
I'm planning to have this blog more or less chronicle my own reading progress (rather egocentric that, but what blog isn't?) however, before I get truly started, I wanted to put in a word for the books that I've already read. Now we've all seen gigantor lists with titles like "Top 100 Book List" or "100 Must-Read Books." But if we're honest with ourselves, how many of us really have the time to read 100 books, many of which tend to be lengthy, heavy reading? Well, now you don't have to feel guilty about that long uncompleted list. You can simply tackle this one--my own personal list of "10 Books to Read Before You Die."
*snaps out of advertisement voice*
In all seriousness, this list truly is the product of my own experience. I haven't read every great masterpiece of the world--no, not even the Top 100 Book List (I confess!) and I know that a book may not have an equally strong impact on different people. But here's my list, for what it's worth (in no particular order).
1. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Dostoyefsky once said that "Beauty will save the world." This book is the best fictional example I know of that kind of beauty, as well as, in my opinion, THE fantasy text of the 20th century.
2. Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes. One man's story that is at once intensely personal and unescapably universal. You will never see the mentally challenged, or indeed any human being, the same again.
3. 1984, by George Orwell. A brilliant dystopian work whose predictions, I feel, are scarily coming true and whose warnings are needed more now than ever.
4. The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. An intelligent and witty exploration of beauty, art, sin, pleasure, and consequences.
5. Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmund Rostand. This is technically a play, but you can of course find it in book form. You'll laugh, you'll cry. I think this play is nothing less than a whole-hearted expression of the love of a man and the heart of a woman.
6. Atonement, by Ian McEwan. With an almost obsessive realism, this is a painful coming-of-age story with some unusual and thought-provoking archetypes.
7. The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock Holmes is the detective who started it all! This is my favorite one in the Holmes collection.
8. The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy. Another guy who started it all! Sir Percy Blakeney is the ultimate masked defender--complete with a hapless alter-ego and a strongly romanticized love interest.
9. The Treasure Seekers, by E. Nesbit. A poignant and humorous story that will definitely awaken your inner child.
10. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. Laughter is the best medicine! This book is so funny it shouldn't even be legal, and it's actually quite philosophical too.
*snaps out of advertisement voice*
In all seriousness, this list truly is the product of my own experience. I haven't read every great masterpiece of the world--no, not even the Top 100 Book List (I confess!) and I know that a book may not have an equally strong impact on different people. But here's my list, for what it's worth (in no particular order).
1. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Dostoyefsky once said that "Beauty will save the world." This book is the best fictional example I know of that kind of beauty, as well as, in my opinion, THE fantasy text of the 20th century.
2. Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes. One man's story that is at once intensely personal and unescapably universal. You will never see the mentally challenged, or indeed any human being, the same again.
3. 1984, by George Orwell. A brilliant dystopian work whose predictions, I feel, are scarily coming true and whose warnings are needed more now than ever.
4. The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. An intelligent and witty exploration of beauty, art, sin, pleasure, and consequences.
5. Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmund Rostand. This is technically a play, but you can of course find it in book form. You'll laugh, you'll cry. I think this play is nothing less than a whole-hearted expression of the love of a man and the heart of a woman.
6. Atonement, by Ian McEwan. With an almost obsessive realism, this is a painful coming-of-age story with some unusual and thought-provoking archetypes.
7. The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock Holmes is the detective who started it all! This is my favorite one in the Holmes collection.
8. The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy. Another guy who started it all! Sir Percy Blakeney is the ultimate masked defender--complete with a hapless alter-ego and a strongly romanticized love interest.
9. The Treasure Seekers, by E. Nesbit. A poignant and humorous story that will definitely awaken your inner child.
10. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. Laughter is the best medicine! This book is so funny it shouldn't even be legal, and it's actually quite philosophical too.
The inevitable first post
Greetings, one and all and welcome to Caution:Contains Spoilers! I'm a person who loves to read, but lately I've been wanting to go a step further with books beyond merely inhaling the contents and dashing madly off to the next thing. Hence, a blog dedicated solely to books--reviews, recommendations, discussions, maybe even a bit of fanfiction! It is my hope that this blog will both inspire people to read new books and give people a chance to go deeper with books they've already read. Accordingly, for each book I discuss, there will be a before and after posting. The "before" will be to whet your appetite for the book in question without giving away crucial plot points; the after will be a sort of review/discussion question mish-mash in which, as indicated by the blog's title, spoilers will abound. And yay! I just used a semicolon! I haven't done that all summer due to the absence of school papers.
Anyhoo, this is my plan--but as a disclaimer, I do sometimes neglect to finish things I start. As Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy know only too well. Arrrrghhh...
Anyhoo, this is my plan--but as a disclaimer, I do sometimes neglect to finish things I start. As Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy know only too well. Arrrrghhh...
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