Setting the Bar

Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire picks up where Wicked leaves off - the death of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West.

Elphaba has died, not as a withered, desiccated old lady but in her prime, as she’s getting ready to make things happen.  Would she have really changed things in Oz - with the Animals and her work on their behalf and on other fronts that she wasn’t able to explore due to her untimely death? A decade after her death, Liir, the young man whose parentage is unknown, is found by a group of maunts unconscious, bloody and on the brink of death himself. He is brought back to the nunnery of St. Glinda, the same one that Elphaba was at where she was nursed , to be nursed by the nuns there and by Candle, a novice in training, who manages to revive him with her ethereal and uncanny abilities to play music. The political climate is stressful - humans have been found skinned and bloodied throughout the land of Oz and wild outlanders are blamed for it. The land has become increasingly militarized.

This book explores Liir’s life from the date of Elphaba’s death, to his revival and beyond. It tracks Liir’s growth into a man as well as Oz’s political development. It is a a treatise to the behavior of leaders to their subjects as much as it is a treatise as to one’s development into their own person and a person’s relationship with religion. Maguire uses magical language and symbolism to convey his views; these words should be savored and gone through slowly, not simply plowed through, in order to get every little bit that is conveyed by Maguire. I enjoyed Maguire’s prose very much.  I didn’t like the seeminlyg gratuitous forays into bloodshed and sexual violence that Maguire sometimes wove into his tale.  The story could have done without quite easily.

All in all, though, definitely a worthwhile to read and for sure, a necessary addition to your personal library.

Elphaba is the first born daughter of a minister in the Land of Oz.  And boy does she have it difficult right fromt the day that she is first born. Her mother is born to a nobel family - the Thropps - and is scheduled to inherit everything when her mother (Elphaba’s grandmother) dies.  However, her mother married down - an outback minister named Frex - and is living in squalor.  Frex is never around and Elphaba is born with sharp, animal like teeth and GREEN skin! Elphaba leads her life initially as a headstrong agitator, animal rights activist, nurse and nun before donning the title of “Wicked Witch of the West.” The majority of the book focuses on Elphaba’s childhood and young adulthood, which is the most intriguing part of anyone’s history in my opinion because it answers, at least in part, the question of why someone becomes who they become in adult life and why they do the things they do in their adult life.

I enjoyed how Maguire intertwined the various sects of society in Oz around one another and how he managed to create atmosphere.  The scenes that he painted throughout his narrative evoked such clear and convincing pictures, sounds and even smells that it was easy to imagine that one was there experiencing the scene as it took place, rather than being told about it later on. I loved how Maguire made Elphaba a beautiful, complex, intelligent, strong and courageous woman - adjectives that we never would have ever given to the horrible green skinned monster that L. Frank Baum wanted us to believe that she was.  I was charmed by her and actually found myself relating to her in some parts.  I felt like I understood her (or Maguire’s interpretation of her) much better after this novel.

This book was amazing, a must read for any adult. But don’t walk into it thinking that it is sugar coated. You are not going to get the wonderful Wizard of Oz…it is truly a magical book that is directed towards adults.

The Exorcist: The Beginning is the 2004 prequel to The Exorcist. You know that movie: the one where the little girl’s head spins, she vomits green vomit and there is an old priest and a young priest. In this version, Stellan Skarsgard stars as a priest that has left the Church after bearing witness to and participating in atrocities during World War II in Germany. He is now an archaelogist in Cairo and is asked to go to a dig site in Kenya where a Byzantine Church is being unearthed. He is asked to participate in the dig, to recover an ancient artifact but realizes that the Church, which was buried in pristine condition, actually houses some evil that is now infecting the region and which is being unearthed by the dig. The dig unearths another temple dedicated to Satanism and an evil spirit - Pazuzu- who we meet later on in The Exorcist. The end scene fight is the fight that is referenced in the original Exorcist movie.

I hated this movie. Plain and simple. Why, oh, why must they do this when the original was so good? The horrendous nature of the movie is masked by useless gore - nasty skin diseases, slit throats, axes in heads, shots of deformed babies - and it is as if they are PROUD to have masked how atrocious this movie is with the gore. There is no depth to the plot or the characters, even though one of them - Merrin, the priest - has been handed to producers and directors on a plate. We don’t learn anything about the demon Pazuzu at all, which is a disappointment, considering that this is a prequel and prequels are supposed to explain things aren’t they? The Catholic themes that dominated the first one and made it scary and uncomfortable to watch, are non-existent or just plain stupid in this movie. Not even Skarsgaard, who can be quite a good actor in some circumstances, could save this movie and at some points, he probably could have shouted :”This is awful” and it would have worked better than the script that he was forced to repeat.

Lisa Kleypas’ latest Wallflower novel, A Wallflower Christmas, is a lighthearted historical romance set in Victorian England. American stud Rafe Bowman arrives in Victorian England for a bride shopping trip. He is scheduled to meet Lady Natalie Blandford, whose parents are very wealthy and very high in society.  She’s thoroughly uninteresting to Rafe, as if you couldn’t see that coming. The meeting with Natalie and the couple’s engagement is slated to occur over the Christmas season while they, their friends and family and the Wallflowers are all together at an estate celebrating the holidays in true Victorian style. Needless to say, there is a lot of pressure on Rafe to land Lady Natalie as a wife - the union will secure the family’s place in society and ensure Rafe’s success in the family business. The Wallflowers are a group of four women that have been friends, seemingly forever and one of them is Rafe’s sister.

Rafe naturally falls in love with the more common born and interesting Hannah, Lady Natalie’s cousin, companion and chaperone. Throughout the novel, Rafe constantly follows Hannah around, like a little, lost puppy dog, in spite of her rejections - he is after all, slated for her cousin, so why should she give him the time of day?

The novel is very, very short - it is 210 pages - so the minutiae of the romance between Hannah and Rafe is glossed over. Don’t expect any of the characters to be developed or for the plot to depart from your typical historical romance.  The character development and plotlines are barebones and predictable - all around, two-dimensional. I didn’t learn anything at all about Hannah, her family, where she is from, what she is passionate about. She’s an empty vessel and that was disappointing. The plot was cliche and predictable.  There weren’t any surprises anywhere in the 210 pages - I kept expecting one to come but, alas, one didn’t. For the price of the hardcover/trade paperback, the price was worth more than the story. I had a hard time connecting to ANY of the characters, including Hannah and Rafe.

This is a book that I wish that I hadn’t wasted the time reading. 

Mansfield Park, the movie, loosely based upon the novel by Jane Austen, was pretty entertaining but frustrating nonetheless.  If you loved the book and are a serious Jane Austen fan (or even a casual consumer of her literature that does not like the bastardization of literature that is made into movies), this is not the movie for you. Most of my complaints can be generalized to books that are made into movies.  There seems to be a plethora of things that are lost in translation when books are made into movies. Very rarely, in my opinion, can books be successfully made into comparable or even good movies. The exceptions are few and far between - To Kill a Mockingbird (which was  a fantastic movie that somehow was able to remain true to the book) and Gone With the Wind (which some say is a better movie than book, although I tend to really like both for different reasons) are the two that come to mind. This movie is not one of those exceptions.

The only thing that is true to the book are the names of the characters. Their personalities and the plots are completely lost, which is a shame because the actors in the movie are fairly well-known and decent actors. The heroine, Fanny Price (who is my most favorite Jane Austen character of all time), is rendered two dimensional in this movie - instead of the layers of moral turpitude that exist in the book, she is simply a tomboy that exists to appeal to men who want to “tame” the wild, different woman. I absolutely hated how this movie changed the main character so absolutely and so completely and completely changed the plotlines. For instance, in the book, there is only one (I’m pretty sure that it is only one) reference to the slave trade. But in this movie, it becomes an entire subplot, with all its twists and turns.

That being said, there are some redeeming qualities. I did enjoy the acting and the costumes and the settings were gorgeous. Mr. Rushworth the character and the actor playing him gave me some giggles. The casting was right on. I found myself liking this version of Fannie as well, even though she was very different from the one that I had previously been introduced to, perhaps because of the way Ms. O’Connor portrayed her.

That being said, if you’re going to be annoyed or mad because of the liberties taken in creating a movie of a piece of literature, then I wouldn’t watch this movie. However, if you can get beyond that, then for sure, rent this today.

I just finished listening to Nights in Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks. And this book was exactly like every other Nicholas Sparks book that I have ever read and that I will probably ever read. I don’t know why it would be any different. A la The Bridges of Madison County, a middle aged couple engage in a torrid, four day and intense affair that results in them falling in love.  The female partner in the book, Adrienne, is the same as the protagonist in Bridges - she is a middle aged woman that has put everyone in her life before her, often to her own detriment. In order to help her daughter cope with the untimely death of her own husband, Adrienne tells her of her own affair, which had taken place fifteen years before. At the time of the affair, Adrienne was 45 and her husband, an attorney, had just left her for a much younger woman.

What I enjoyed about this book is that Sparks actually, in my opinion, accurately portrays a woman that has dedicated her life to her family and experiences the absolute destruction that an affair and subsequent divorce lead that woman to feel. Adrienne becomes destitute and throws herself into work and family so that she can forget about the pain that her husband has wrought upon her. This was, perhaps, the only saving grace of the entire novel.

The negatives were abundant. The male protagonist, Doctor Paul Flanner, is a serial workaholic who didn’t make time for his wife and child. As a result, his wife has left him and his son, also a doctor, has fled to Ecuador to work in an understaffed clinic in an attempt to be everything that his father isn’t.  Paul’s life falls apart when one of his patients dies during a routine surgery (duh - I mean, come on be a little more original would you?!). This story is predictable - you can see how it resolves miles (hours in an audiobook) ahead of the end and I often found myself thinking “Get to the point. WHEN is this going to end?!” The dialog was awful and the prose less than fantastic.  Don’t even bother with this one.

I have loved Alice Sebold ever since I read Lucky. I loved her writing style and how brutally honest she was. And I loved her because she went to Syracuse and I knew all of the places that she was talking about. So I had high hopes for this novel, her second one after The Lovely Bones. I was so excited to see it at the library and was surprised that no one had picked it up before I had gotten there. But then, I started reading it and realized why it was still on the shelf.

When we meet Helen Knightly, Alice Sebold’s protagonist, she bluntly tells us that she has killed her mother. The dutiful daughter, the one that has daughters of her own and who does nude modelling for the local collegiate art students, has been driven over the edge by her domineering mother and has killed her in a fit of passion. Sometimes, it’s extremely surreal and other times clear, but it is always dark and humorless, cynical in its design.  It’s often difficult to feel sorry for Helen, though in other normal circumstances, one might feel bad for a daughter who is caring for a mother that rides her and picks at her like there is no tomorrow.  Maybe Alice didn’t want us to feel badly for Helen and that’s fine.

What wasn’t fine, is how absolutely painful and horribly like pulling teeth reading this novel was. I kept expecting to find some insight into Helen above and beyond the mother hatred as the novel progressed, but it never came.  I also really wanted to learn about the other characters, but they were two dimensional at their best. I hope that the next one is better.

I just finished reading Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison, Augusten Burroughs’ older brother. It’s a memoir about his struggles with Asperger’s Syndrome before Asperger’s was a recognized disability. I bought the book because of my interactions with people with Asperger’s Syndrome - I wanted to learn more about it and how people with it thought and reasoned. Mr. Robison wasn’t diagnosed until he was 40 and this book focues on his struggles.

I had an appreciation for Robison’s writing style and the accessibility of his stories.  I generally enjoyed them and I appreciated that this book was written.  Asperger’s is still a mystery to a lot of people, in spite of the fact that the people diagnosed with it are ever increasing in numbers - it is a fairly new diagnosis to acquire also. However, I had a problem with him describing people with Asperger’s syndrome as being savants, with a special skill (almost like Rain Man with better social skills) and I don’t think that this is the case. At least people that have experienced Asperger’s more closely than I have say that this isn’t always the case.

I finally got around to seeing the latest installment of the Indiana Jones quadrilogy last night and I have to say, I was sorely disappointed.  Being a new mom (I have a ten month old son), it’s very rare that I get to sit down and watch a movie completely, all the way through, with my husband no less and so, that movie better be pretty darn good. 

That being said, I have always liked the Indiana Jones movies.  They were my favorite movies growing up and I was really excited to hear that a new one was coming out. I had high hopes, and perhaps that was part of my problem. Anyways, onward…

The last time that an Indiana Jones movie came out, the year was 1938 and World War 2 was about to start. Indy was still fighting the Nazis and going after the Holy Grail with his dad and Marcus Brody.  Indy was successful, par usual and he rode off into the sunset. In the fourth installment, it’s 20 years later - 1957 - in part, because it’s really hard to hide how much Harrison Ford has aged and how much gray hair he has (although he did a lot of his own stunts apparently). Indy is fighting with the Soviets this time because the world is in the midst of the Cold War. The world is threatened by nuclear annihilation and h-bombs. The movie opens in the desert with Cate Blanchett as a Soviet military official taking an imprisoned Indiana Jones to a warehouse in order to force him to help her locate a crate that’s there (interestingly, it’s the same warehouse that the Ark is in). Indy escapes, surviving a nuclear test, and returns to his job as a professor, where he’s fired after McCarthyism rears its ugly head. Indy meets Mutt, played by Shia LeBeouf, who manages to convince Indy to help him rescue his mother and Ox, a scientist, who were captured by the Russians in order to figure out what to do with a crystal skull that they found that has some sort of supernatural power.

I was really disappointed in this movie because it was just so outrageous. For instance, Indy survives a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator. Also, Harrison Ford just seemed tired.  Tired of aging, tired of Indiana Jones, tired of it all.  He was dragging, although I did appreciate the self-deprecating humor that he had regarding his age. The plot was unbelievable (where it existed) and often, the movie was actually seemingly plotless. I’m sorry, but aliens?! For crying out loud, this is Indiana Jones, not the X-Files. If I wanted the X-Files I would have rented the series DVD’s or the movie.

I was sorely disappointed. Indy deserved and deserves so much more.