Well, don’t. Via Fuse, the Dark is Rising movie is, um, not something that fans of the book are going to like. Check out her post here.
Author: booknutgirls
As You Like It
I have no idea how to write this without sounding, well, un-ed-jee-kated. Coz, unlike many English students/graduates/professors, I firmly believe that Shakespeare should be SEEN and not READ. I try once in a blue moon (granted the last time I tried was, oh, about 17 years ago when I was in college) to read a Shakespeare play, and, I’m sorry to say, it always ends up with the same result. I. Don’t. Get. It.
I remember my high school AP English class, struggling through Hamlet, until my mom suggested that she and I read it aloud. All of a sudden, it made (more) sense. Since then, I’ve been a big fan of seeing the Bard’s plays, but not so much reading them. I’d like to say that years and years of not reading Shakespeare would make a difference. And maybe since this play is one of his comedies that would make it easier, but, sorry, no. I read the words, and even managed to be surprised that “all the world’s a stage, and the men and women are merely players” turned up in the play. But, I just don’t get the appeal of reading the words on the page. It’s a decent play, and I think I got the gist of what was going on. But, I think I would have enjoyed it (and understood it) so much more if I’d seen it.
My question then, I suppose, is for Carl: If I go see Midsummer Night’s Dream on Friday, do I still have to read it?
A True and Faithful Narrative
I have a much higher opinion of this book, by Katherine Sturtevant, than I did of it’s prequel. For me, this story was much more interesting, Meg was a much more sympathetic character, the ending had a much better payoff. In short, I thought it was a much more enjoyable book.
Meg’s now 16, so it takes place a few years after At the Sign of the Star ends. She still works in her father’s bookshop, but now everyone’s pressuring her to marry (being the mid 1600s and all). She doesn’t want to, so when Edward (her friend Anne’s brother) comes in before he leaves for Italy on an apprenticeship, and essentially proposes to her, she doesn’t respond well. In fact, when he asks if he could bring her anything, she says, “Why, nothing, unless — yes, I so wish we had a narrative to rival Okeley’s that we might sell at the sign of the Star. Can you not manage to be captured by pirates, and enslaved in North Africa?”
Ouch.
So, when it happens that Edward does get captured by pirates and sold into slavery in North Africa, Meg feels, well, guilty. She still doesn’t want to marry him — in fact she’s smitten with her father’s apprentice, Will Barlow — but she does her best working to raise the ransom money to bring him home. Eventually, they succeed, and Edward comes back.
And from there, I’m going to leave you in the dark. I think it’s best not knowing what happens (I didn’t, and I think I enjoyed it more than if I would have known) to them once Edward comes back.
Some other brief notes. There’s a lot on Muslims and life in Arabic lands in the book. In some respects, it fits okay in the book — Edward is just trying to work against prejudices of the time. But in others, it feels a bit, well, modern. I’m not sure what the prejudices were in the mid-1600s, but it felt a lot like Sturtevant was trying to deal with prejudices against Muslims in our time. (Did that make sense?) Maybe I’m being cynical here: it is a good time to publish a book that has pro-Muslim sentiments in it, trying to deal with false prejudices and stereotypes, and I guess I felt like she was taking advantage of that.
At any rate, it’s a good story. And it’s a good stand-alone book, so you don’t have to read the first one first.
Shameless Self-Promotion
The June issue of Estella’s Revenge is up, and it’s, um, hot. *grin*
As for my contributions, there’s my (very gushing) review of Austenland, an interview with (the very fun and down-to-earth) Shannon Hale, and an article about why we all love Jane Austen (which took me a lot longer to write than I thought it would).
Go. Read. Enjoy. (Come back with ego-stroking words of praise. *grin again* Can you tell I’m proud of/excited about this issue?)
Larklight
I was wandering around the stacks (which is really difficult with two small kids, but I’ve mentioned that before), looking for something for M (this is sounding really familiar… have I written this already?) and I spotted this book. I thought, “Hey, Fuse reviewed this a while back, and she liked it” and so I snatched it up.
I’ve never read anything else by Philip Reeve before (having never heard of him), and so this was my first go at his writing. And…
It took me a while to get into the book. I kept reading chapters and thinking “well, I’ll give it just one more chapter”. I think I did that for nearly 3/4 of the book (near the end, the action picked up enough that I quit being distracted by the amount of detail about the world). I found it amusing enough — though I was often reminded of Lemony Snickett’s humor, which didn’t really appeal to me all that much — but what I really had a hard time with was the world it was set in: 19th-century space. Yeah, you read that right. The British Empire, in it’s full glory in outer space. The book is full of space creatures (both sentient and non), Martians, Ionians, other weird creature-type things, flying boats, chemical weddings (how the ships propel themselves through space), evil spiders… it took me a long time to get used to the world. And when I finally did, well, it was still just weird.
I enjoyed Art and Myrtle and Jack as characters, though I think Myrtle was way underused. I really liked the chapter titles. I loved the illustrations. But aside from that, there wasn’t much to catch my fancy.
But then, I’m not a 10-year-old boy. Maybe if I was, I’d like this one a whole lot.
Updated to add: I was telling a friend about this one, trying to describe it, and she said, “Oh! Kind of like Treasure Planet?” Having never seen it, I couldn’t say for sure… so, I got it from Netflix, and watched it over the weekend. Now I can say, yeah, this book is a LOT like Treasure Planet. In fact, the basic premise is the same as Treasure Planet: 70 percent traditional with 30 percent modern/industrial/space. There’s some significant differences (one being that Treasure Planet is based upon Treasure Island), but there’s a lot of similarities, too. Kind of eerie, if you ask me.
The Killer Angels
My family, growing up, was one of those who didn’t go to amusement parks. Even though I was promised a trip to Disneyland, we never made it (we moved across the country instead). No, we were subjected to Educational Trips. I remember monuments, national parks, historical sites, battle sites… my dad’s dragged the family to all sorts of places. I guess it’s even more telling that I married a man who feels much the same way about vacations: a trip to a national park or a Civil or Revolutionary War battle site is what a good vacation is all about.
The thing is, when it comes to the battle sites, I could care less. Walking around a nice piece of countryside where lots of people shot at each other a long time ago isn’t my idea of a fun way to spend an afternoon. So, I suppose it’s no surprise that I’d never heard of or expressed interest in this book by Michael Shaara.
I should say, then, thank heavens for book groups. Because without my in-person group, I never ever would have read this book. And I was fascinated by it.
For those of you who don’t know, it’s a novel about the three days of the battle of Gettysburg, beginning with the day before. It’s the story of how General Lee lost the war, of how the North managed to dig in and pull out a victory. It’s heart-rendering. It’s exciting. It’s… well… a classic.
Sure, the book has it’s drawbacks. It’s a war book. That, in itself, could be a drawback. But it’s an engaging read — much of it is internal monologue with the main characters: Lee, Longstreet, Chamberlan. Sometimes, the rambling got long, and I do have to admit that I skimmed parts that got boring (granted, there were times I regretted that, and had to go back and re-read). But for the most part, it was a compelling book. The most exciting part, for me, was Chamberlain’s defense of Little Round Top. It was gutsy, brilliant, and dang impressive. And I had no idea. I think that’s probably the most interesting thing about this book: it’s so well written that I could believe that this wasn’t made up, that it actually really happened the way Shaara wrote it. I had to keep reminding myself that it’s fiction, that Lee/Chamberlain/Longstreet probably didn’t actually think/feel/say these things.
But wouldn’t it be interesting if they did?
All Austen All the Time
It’s Austen month around here — between my review of Austenland, an interview with Shannon Hale and an essay I wrote, all for the June issue of Estella, I’ve been submersed in Jane Austen world. So, when I discovered this over at Corrine‘s, I had to take it. And… drum roll, please…
Why not a bit of fluff before the long weekend?
Warrior Girl
I’ve let books stack up, so I’m enjoying a bit of a blogging blitz today.
This one, by Pauline Chandler, is the story of Joan of Arc. So, while it’s probably more historical fiction than folklore, I’m still going to count it for my Once Upon a Time Challenge.
This telling of the story is an interesting one. The narrator is Mariane, Jehanne’s (or Joan’s, everything’s done from the French perspective) cousin and companion. Mariane is an interesting choice for a narrator since she was struck dumb with the shock of her mother’s murder. It makes for a quiet book, as much of the action is taking place within Mariane. She interacts with Jehanne, but she doesn’t really contribute. After I got over the unusual narrator, and actually got into the story, I quite enjoyed it.
Well, I should say that I quite enjoyed Mariane’s story. While Jehanne was an interesting character, and I could see the pull of her faith, I didn’t get into it quite as much. And maybe it was supposed to be that way. Jehanne is such an elevated person — a saint and all — that she’s almost inaccessable. It’s probably better to see the events from someone more down to earth. Since we’re following Mariane, we take a detour with her while she tries to claim the estate of her deceased father (she didn’t know him, and it came as a surprise to her that she was supposed to be the heir to her father’s estate), and lives there for a while. So, we follow Jehanne and her doings from afar after the battle of Orleans. Mariane goes back to Jehanne’s side for her death, staying through the whole grisly thing. It’s quite moving.
And the ending turns out to be exactly what we expect (since M guessed it…) from something like that. But, I’ll forgive that. It was a good read.
The Secret Garden
I finished reading this to C the other night. It’s not the first time I’ve read it, but it has been a long time, years perhaps. I know hubby read it to M when she was four, and I listened in, but I haven’t actually picked it up on my own for quite a while. So, when my in-person book group selected it as a book for April (whoops, a month behind!), I suggested to C that we read it out loud together.
On the listening end, she didn’t enjoy it as much, I think. She often faded out, only to hear something that caught her interest, but missed something in between. She had a hard time with the dialogue, and didn’t really appreciate the long, rambling passages about growing things. In short, she wasn’t all that capitvated.
I, as a reader, was completely captivated. I loved reading the dialogue, and the language was so much fun to feel coming off my tongue. I know I would have missed things if I hadn’t read it out loud. Some aside of Martha’s or Mrs. Medlock’s. And I thoroughly enjoyed watching the world, and Colin and Mary come alive.
I guess I can only hope that C will want to read it again herself, someday.
The Book Nut 