If the title of this book doesn't sound familiar, you have been living under a rock for about fifty some-odd years. This is not the novelization of the classic Stanley Kubrick film, nor is the movie based on this book. They were written in tangent, and although the book was started first, they were caught up to each other by the "Star Gate" sequence (the part with all the flashy colours). And the book was revised based on Kubrick's suggestions, and... Maybe vice versa? I'm not so sure. Some things are different, like in the book Saturn is the goal, the goal planet is different in the movie (I believe, to be fair it has been a while since I watched it), but the story is basically the same.
Oh yeah, the story--for those of you living under a rock, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a sci-fi picture by Stanley Kubrick. It's about the evolution of mankind on the widest scale imaginable, and also there is a psychotic computer named HAL on the ship that decides the crew is extra or noneffective and kills the majority of them (though in the book it implies that he is going insane due to different causes*). Also there's more stuff, but it's sort of complicated and there's a reason why it's a two and half+ hour long movie (though it feels a lot longer). This is the sort of movie you know, even if you don't know. You've heard "I can't let you do that, Dave" or you've seen HAL's ominous and unfeeling red "eye" peering at you somewhere before--heck, just look at the evil AI system from Wall-E. They're so similar it's kind of annoying. Oh well...
So it starts out with some intros written by Arthur C Clarke, a dude you may only recognize from his relationship with this movie, but he was knighted for his services to literature by Queen Elizabeth II and invented the communication satellite. So he trumps me in every respect possible.
Most of it is a comparison of how things in the book came true as technology progressed, or odd coincidences between the book and real life. My personal favourite anecdote that Clarke shares is that supposedly Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin admitted that they had been tempted to "radio back the discovery of a large black monolith" (Clarke XVI).
Clarke also says that not only did he write this book (obviously) but he also wrote 2010, 2061 and 3001. I knew there was something like a sequel in movie form, existed, but... Well, if I see these I'd probably pick them up, why not? This book was really good. He also mentions that the books are criticized because they "explain[ed] too much" (Clarke XVIII)--what?? Dude, you watch those movies and tell me that the mystery is beautiful and you weren't wondering about any part of it. Yes? Oh that is the case? You're lying to both of us, man. Trust me, the two complement each other really well, and this definitely doesn't go too far. I guess I can't speak for the other three books, though.
Anyways, the actual story: the book starts the same way as the movie, with the ape-men. This is the first point where I thanked every possible turn of fate (and my boyfriend) for getting this book into my hands. Granted, it's been a while since I saw the movie. I mostly the remember monkeys doing monkey things, seeing the monolith, breaking stuff (for example, the importance of the monkey breaking the skull/skeleton is a whole lot clearer to me now) and killing another creature. (Youtube is saying another ape. Hold on while I watch some key scenes here.) Anyways, we get to see a little more from the "main" ape, Moon Watcher, and what his life was like before seeing the Monolith and after. And instead of monkeys just hanging around the slab, it projects an image that hypnotizes the monkeys and probes their minds, described in a way that recalls the Stargate section of the movie (for those of you that have seen it). The thing that probes their minds guides them in doing simple actions like tying knots, squatting, and although it doesn't directly implant ideas into his head, you see how it causes the revelations like using tools. I don't believe you see it in the film, but it even shows Moon Watcher and his ape clan overcoming their greatest threat, the leopard. This is of course meant to symbolize man becoming the new predator or being able to assert himself over nature: I believe in the film this just symbolized with the crushing of the "pig" skull (the animal you see in the cuts look more like tapirs than pigs; I'm not sure about the skulls though). And of course there is the murder of the opposing ape-tribe's leader.
One thing that makes me wonder is the bit about the jump cut--the scene in the movie where the bone is thrown up into the air then goes to the space ship is often hailed as the longest jump cut in film history. Do they mean the jump itself has been timed and has proven to be that long? Or do they mean long as in from 3 million BC to 2001 AD makes it the longest?
Also, like I said, it's been a long time since I've seen the film and my DVD no longer exists (I think my brother claimed it), but I can't help but wonder: I remember that the ape man segment was REALLY long. Or at least, I remember wanting to get to space already. But it was at least 25 minutes, so knowing Stanley Kubrick's thoroughness, I can't help but wonder if it was 33/37 pages, exactly how long Moon-Watcher's portion of the book is (or 34-37 if you count the bridging chapter that tells of mankind's expansion in general).
So we go through that and we're immediately in 2001, though Clarke does update us on the social climate, technological changes, and politics that are important for the reader to know. It's also pretty clear that he's a genius but he keeps all the scientific stuff toned down enough so that nearly anybody would be able to understand it. I must say in his alternate take on the future, it's interesting to note that he notes that "birth control was cheap, reliable, and endorsed by all the main religions" (Clarke 44). High five Arthur C Clarke! (Though that may be the most fantastical aspect of this book, unfortunately.) Although he mentions that in his alternate future an accepted/cheap birth control had come a little bit late and overpopulation was still an issue despite all of that. It's worse in his alternate future, but still...
So I commit my own longest jump in this blog's history (lies), and my next mark is on page 82, when Floyd arrives on the moon to check out the second monolith that was discovered there. It's got about the same measurements as the one that appeared to the ape men, and an interesting fun fact is that the ratios of the film measure up to the film picture, so it can be argued that you're viewing the film through a Monolith on its side. Anyways, this monolith doesn't teach as its earth twin did, it just sends out a pulse letting whoever was waiting for the message know that it has been unearthed by somebody or something.
Oh, also, HAL: stands for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer, it just happens to match up with IBM... Well, on this one... that is one hell of a coincidence, Arthur C Clarke. I mean, I can't quite argue it, but... Man, I don't know. I guess this is just one of those things that Kubrick conspiracy theorists love, and I've read too many of their theories to completely swallow this. It's possible that for Clarke it was just a coincidence, but Kubrick spotted it and jumped on it--as the conspiracy believers will point out, a lot of the computers and screens have the IBM logo on them that you can see in reflections and if you freeze the screen when all of the planets are aligned on the vernal equinox... No, actually, you can see the logo in stills. But again, IBM was probably contracted to actually make the computers and systems used, since Stanley Kubrick wanted all of this to function as if they were actually going to shoot it off to space, hahahaha (that man was insane holy crap).
Oh, and again with HAL, Clarke gives us a brief history on how computer technology/robots have evolved in a nice "you are an English major and you still think blowing on electronic devices fixes them" way. That is, keep it simple, stupid. Even I can follow this and yeah, I blow into the DS slot when I switch games just in case. Still.
So the team is the same. Obviously the visuals are less cool (my imagination is nothing compared to Kubrick's, let's be honest) and HAL is not as threatening because he is not a creepy glowing red eye, and no matter how good the book is, it cannot do what Stanley Kubrick did. I know I'm biased because I saw the movie first, but man, I was feeling safe when I read this because everything wasn't white, on a hamster wheel, only to be punctuated by a glowing red robot eye. The eye couldn't see me, I was safe. (Why didn't Sauron scare me this much? Oh right, because Middle Earth isn't isolated and floating seemingly aimlessly through space.) What I'm trying to say is, Stanley Kubrick sure can set one hell of a mood.
At the end of chapter seventeen, Clarke says "The greatest hope of Discovery's little crew was that nothing would mar this peaceful monotony in the weeks and months ahead" (Clarke 128). This is the only part where I felt like Clarke was being patronizing. Clarke, please. Of course something terrible is going to happen to space. It always does.
Anyways, on page 154, something goes wrong with the satellite to Earth! Surprise, moviegoers. HAL cuts the humans off from communicating with the other humans about the issues, leaving him to pick off the humans uncontested. Actually, HAL isn't as nefarious* in the book, which is kind of disappointing for me, since when you think of the film, HAL's plot line tends to overpower the other bits. Probably because it's the least, well, heady. ...Anywayyys, they actually replace the device once and then HAL tells them it must be replaced again because the replacement isn't working either, and that's when Frank Poole is killed by HAL, and although it happens in space, the means of how he is killed exactly are a little different. It almost seems a little gorier in the book, though to be honest both are a little fuzzy to me now.
Actually, the way it seemed to me in the movie is that HAL didn't necessarily destroy the radio controls on purpose--and actually, let me place the asterisk the last two should have directed you to here (*)--hope you're all using ctrl+f! To me, when I saw it, it seemed like that was what had begun HAL's unraveling--the fact that a part of the ship which he basically was should be broken perhaps made him feel inferior and insufficient. To destroy Poole perhaps could have somehow hid that, and in destroying the rest of the crew he could say, "I am better, I don't need you"--something which may as well be true, and would more or less fit in with the idea that he has gained human intelligence, or is on his way, and has acquired some kind of psyche (it might also be noted that HAL was "born" in 1997 ('92 or '91, depending on some drafts)--so in 2001 he would have been around six (or nine or ten)--so depending on the age, he would have been at around the age a human is when they start becoming more self-aware, deepening their ability to think critically and problem solve or at least weigh problems and solutions more effectively, etc. (So I'm a little more attached to HAL being ten, but six is probably just if not more appropriate.)
But HAL in the book's downfall seems to be that the true purpose was to find the next monolith floating out in space. He was not allowed to tell the crew that this was the true purpose of the mission, and in struggling with the issue of ethics in telling the truth--which would go against his orders--or not, which would be willingly deceiving his crew but remaining true to his orders--well, those incongruities are what drove him mad. There are a few paragraphs sort of from HAL's view that support this. So saying the satellite wasn't working was his way of removing himself from his "conscience" or the programming which forced him to lie, or destroy what he had to lie to. Personally, I like the cold villain HAL is in what I perceived in the film (maybe that will change when I watch the movie though...)
Oh, and in the book there's not the creepy lip-reading scene, which is kind of disappointing. Again, he's not as nefarious in the book. They just talk about it in front of him, that he could be wrong, albeit very kindly, with a lot of tact.
Oh, and when the replacement unit "breaks", HAL keeps on pausing for long amounts of time--you know, thinking up something. And when pressed he gets uppity, he tells Dave that there must be something wrong with "'your test procedures'" (Clarke 173). I'm kind of feeling that more for the movie HAL, though. Rough life.
And of course when they finally get a visual/radio transmission from Earth, HAL's alarms go off and cut the transmission (he was announcing that the replacement device broke). Of course.
Oh! But when HAL starts going out of power he still sings "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do..."! The singing isn't as eerie, but somehow his breakdown as a whole is creepier in the book: "'Dave,' said Hal, 'I don't understand why you're doing this to me.... I have the greatest enthusiasm for the mission.... You are destroying my mind.... Don't you understand?.... I will become childish.... I will become nothing.... ...I am a HAL Nine Thousand computer Production Number 3. I became operational at the Hal plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 12, 1997. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The rain in Spain is mainly on the plain. Dave--are you still there? Did you know that the square root of 10 is 3 point 162277660168379? Log 10 to the base e is zero point 434294481903252... correction, that is log e to the base 10... ...two times two is... two times two is... approximately 4 point 101010101010101010.... I seem to be having difficulty--my first instructor was Dr. Chandra. He taught me to sing a song, it goes like this, 'Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you.' The voice stopped so suddenly that Bowman froze for a moment... Then, unexpectedly, Hal spoke again... 'Good... morning... Doctor... Chandra... This... is... Hal.... I... am... ready.. for... my... first... lesson... today....' Bowman could bear no more... and Hal was silent forever" (Clarke 202-203).
After HAL "dies", Dave continues on, as the sole survivor of his ship. And he does find the next monolith--or, the Star Gate, orbiting Saturn. The narrative pulls out to give a brief overview/summary of the Beings that planted the monoliths, eager to plant the seeds of intelligence (were they Arn?). It reminds me a lot of Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question", actually. The "lords of the galaxy" (Clarke 245) seems to follow a pretty similar "evolutionary" path as the people do in that story once space travel The only difference between the monolith on the moon and the one out of Saturn is that it completely dwarfs the one on the moon--oh, and it actually is a gate--Dave flies right in with the ship, at which point, welcome to the trippy last half hour of 2001: A Space Odyssey the movie. The last thing the station on Earth hears from Dave is: "'The thing's hollow--it goes on forever--and--oh my God!--it's full of stars!'" (Clarke 254).
Like the weirdness of the movie, the star gate section is extremely interesting to read--but it's difficult to describe and even quoting it would 1. be far too long and 2. feel like I'm being a cheat. It's definitely more amazing than the scene in the film, a little more sensical, but just as hella trippy. He also walks into the hotel room like in the movie, and it goes more in depth and it's a little more interesting than the movie. The telephone is fake, the writing is copied but blurred (like writing in a photo), the books look like books, but the pages are blank. The drawers were dummies... and so on. There's food in a fridge--and though the containers are made to look like earthen food containers (a cartoon of milk, cereal boxes, etc), they all contain a blueish nutritious gruel--kind of with the consistency of bread pudding, Clarke describes it as. The most interesting bit is that going through the star gate, Dave theorizes that the beings who set everything in place are long gone and extinct. This implies that those beings are still here and were prepared for him--they seem to want to grow him to be what they are. The star baby fetus thing in the film is the first few steps to it, and it's about where Dave is in his extra-evolution when the book ends.
Anyways, my final note--well, second to last note, I should mention (can't remember if I have already) there are four books in this series. So it ends with a sense of, well, not ending--it goes on apparently. I don't know if the next three books are as good, and I wouldn't be inclined to buy them, but I would go out of my way to find them and read them. Anyways. The last paragraph of the book is: "Then [Dave] waited, marshaling his thoughts and brooding over his still untested powers. For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something" (Clarke 297). But this line stands out because way back in the beginning, Moon-Watcher, the first thinking Man-Ape, ends the section about him specifically in the same sort of way: "For a few moments Moon-Watcher stood uncertainly... Now he was master of the world, and he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something" (Clarke 33).
Sooo yeah, there it is! I don't have much to say, other than it really is an amazing sci-fi book. It could stand alone, but it is a great complement to the movie, even if certain things don't quite match up. It's impressive, and I'm glad I picked it up. (I have to watch the movie again!!!) I don't think the sequels will be able to come close to this, and may in fact, ruin the "mystery", but I'll still be on the lookout for them and let you all know how it goes. See you soon! I'm reading a book on Oscar Wilde right now, but most likely the next book I'll be writing about will be Dolores Claiborne.
Works Cited: Clarke, Arthur C. 2001: A Space Odyssey. New American Library: United States of America, 1999.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Friday, May 31, 2013
The Dark Tower/The Abolition of Man
Hey, I haven't posted in a while because for the past like six months I've been working on Stephen King's Dark Tower series. It took about five extra months because the file on my Kindle for the fourth book was corrupted so I had to find a hard copy, and then I dropped my Kindle while I was on the sixth book and I had to wait until I was back home to finish up the series.
Anyways, I didn't take any specific notes on the books... Well, I had some on my Kindle, but of course that means next to nothing now... But I have to recommend the series. If you've been looking for a fantasy epic, this is perfect, even if you're not a big fan of Stephen King. It's a lot different from many of his other books, and as always, there are a lot of Easter eggs for those who are a fan of his other books (but it still makes sense without having read every single other thing. In some cases, it would have been a little easier without having read certain things, and in some cases some stuff would seem random if you hadn't [like the cameo made by Dinky Earnshaw from "Everything's Eventual"]. And in some cases it is just neutral and whatever). Also, Desperation gets some play, which is always exciting for me.
As for Abolition of Man, it's one of CS Lewis's lesser-known works, though if you look at the post for That Hideous Strength, or read it, CS Lewis says that they are kind of theoretical or philosophical twins. Well, I've put that book out of my mind completely, so maybe that's why The Abolition of Man wasn't doing it for me. And I just noticed when signing into this account for the first time since December, someone commented on that post with a link to his own thoughts on the book--I skimmed it, it mentioned The Abolition of Man, I should probably read it prior to writing this, too late, I'm going to read it over the weekend instead.
Anywayyys. This book was kind of boring. He applies a lot of deconstructionism to real life, which... Well, deconstructionism in the literary theory sense doesn't really lend itself to real life applications, although I personally enjoy deconstructionist looks at fiction and whatnot. He starts off with deconstructing sections from textbooks he has read, which is all well and good, though he looks at it really subjectively which in this case really gets in the way of his reading. But then he tries to bring over his ideas to apply to real life, and it's bulky and awkward. It's kind of like how I felt when I was wrestling with various Camus works: well, that's an interesting theory, buuuut you only have to be alive to know that things aren't quite like that. CS Lewis seems to fall down a slippery slope, deducing that if textbooks present information that is theoretically wrong like X, society will slowly fall apart and this and that. Though some of his observations ring true, it's not going to be because of a textbook that life gets harder and perhaps less observant of humanity. He clearly doesn't remember grade school, because no-one read their textbooks/purged them immediately upon hitting the summer vacation. The fact that he doesn't remember says something too, eh?
Though unlike Camus there are things that apply to modern life. I also am not sure how CS Lewis thought he was going to try to take apart society without using, you know, sociology. It may seem like it's splitting hairs for me to say deconstructing and a sociological look at something are different and have different situations which they should be applied to--but they do, although they can work in tangent. It was just... really weird. Everything he set up was so awkward and unbalanced for me that I honestly couldn't even focus on the point he was trying to make there.
Oh, and while I'm thinking of it, the cover itself: the bio does not list Narnia in his best-known work. Come on, man.
One particularly weird thing I noticed that also made it hard for me to focus on his argument or figure out his point was his references to Hinduism. Granted, there are a lot of religions that believe that you can achieve enlightenment or become one with the universe or God(s) or whatnot, but in the second Space Trilogy book, CS Lewis says that "What Pantheists falsely hoped of Heaven bad men really received in Hell. They were melted down into their Master, as a lead soldier slips down and loses his shape in the ladle held over the gas ring. The question whether Satan, or one whom Satan has digested, is acting on any given occasion, has in the long run no clear significance. In the meantime, the great thing was not to be tricked again" (173). Obviously such an idea is not viewed positively. So when he (seems to) reference it positively here I was a tad bit thrown. He also relies heavily on concepts of "Tao" to get his points across, but I don't think his understanding of Tao is that great. Certainly the book suffers from his half-self-defined version of the concept as well.
His idea of Tao is also a little confusing because of his emphasis on it: he imagines it as state of mind, which to some extent, unless if I'm mistaken, Taoism is, or plays a major role in it. But again, he has expressed great disdain in other works for non-Christian religions, which this is considered. But it seems that he believes Taoism was the goal of how humanity ought to act/be, and every other religion and philosophy (oh?) is an attempt to line up with it. But... Hm. Well, you understand why I'm having trouble taking this from CS Lewis as opposed to, say, when Jack Kerouac expresses similar beliefs in The Dharma Bums or Desolation Angels, right?
Again, later, he goes on to describe how the sacrifice of oneself for the community would be nonsensical in the terms that the textbook has made which will somehow have a ripple effect on the entirety of society (by the way, what the textbook said was that when a man said something was sublime, it means that "I have sublime feelings" [Lewis 15]. Okay). This apparently 'debunks' sentimental/traditional values... The mindset "claims to be cutting away the parasitic growth of emotion, religious sanction, and inherited taboos, in order that 'real' or 'basic' values may emerge" (Lewis 41-42). One stupid idea in a textbook is not going to cause this. Perhaps it seemed a lot more likely that this would happen in 1947, when this book was first published (1984 wasn't published yet, but Animal Farm would have been fresh in the mind, and Brave New World had been around for over 15 years by that time), but the idea for that time still seems pretty unrealistic. Then again, Britain was also beaten a lot worse in WWII than America physically, so maybe such a negative outlook was expected. Again, the same germ which produced 1984, producing this.
And if he just intended this text book to be the introduction to this idea, what an awkward way to do it! This would be a better example to put in its own paragraph or chapter, not to make it like the vein that runs through it, because it totally throws the paper and makes it lopsided and awkward.
Anywayyyys, the martyrdom thing. Basically he just says, should people like this succeed, you could never expect sacrifices for other men or community--shame wouldn't move them, nor love, nor whatever. In fact, nothing could move them either way. Okay. But if people are this flat, you could presumably just say, "Go get yourself killed". Of course, my idea takes into account that there will be people controlling brain dead masses. Which, should this come to fruition, would have to be the case, unless if everybody evolves backwards into cave men.
He also brings up, in the middle of nowhere, as an ill-fitting example, that of sexual satisfaction. This is another topic that kind of brings me pause when he brings up, because I don't think CS Lewis was all that experienced with, well, sex. So he says that "For of course sexual desire, being instinctive, is to be gratified whenever it does not conflict with with the preservation of the species" (Lewis 45). This doesn't get mentioned again till about a dozen pages later, in a different context. So what is CS Lewis talking about here? Against overpopulation? Protection of the parents'/mother's health? That seems a little modern for this, but since CS Lewis changes the subject right afterwards, we'll never know.
Oh yeah, on page 47, CS Lewis uses the phrase "infinite regress"--which is akin to putting a stamp on the cover over the book that says "I AM DECONSTRUCTING". I recognized what was going on prior to that, but upon seeing that I just kind of rolled my eyes. Deconstructionist ideals can be applied to the human psyche and real life, but this is the first time I've ever seen something taken apart by it (I'm thinking about it now, and you could argue that Camus's theories behind his works make him a deconstructionist, but it's so easy to destroy his works with deconstructionism that it doesn't even matter man), and boy is it awkward. The fact that he never brings in any other deconstructionist buzzwords or even just this earlier on gives me a feeling that he was sort of piddling around, kind of unsure about the theory he wanted to use. Then again, he didn't have the benefit of a handy-dandy book by Lois Tyson... So yeah, I'm probably being kind of harsh...
"If man chooses to treat himself as raw material, raw material he will be: not raw material to be manipulated, as he fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite, that is, mere Nature, in the person of his dehumanized Conditioners" (Lewis 84).
"A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery" (Lewis 84-85). : / But your use of dogmatic makes this statement problematic...
At the end of this book there are sections of quotes which go to support his Tao theory and the laws he believes all cultures or many (especially Classical cultures, it must be noted) uphold. Personally, I think these would have been more useful, you know, in the actual paper used to support and strengthen it, but the quotes are still interesting:
"'Terrify not men or God will terrify thee'" (Lewis 97; Ancient Egyptian, Precepts of Ptahhetep).
"'"To live according to nature is the supreme good"'" (Lewis 107; Roman, Cicero).
"'The second of these achievements is no less glorious than the first; for while the first did good on one occasion, the second will continue to benefit the state forever'" (Lewis 108; Roman, Cicero).
Also problematic is that in this section, he includes a quote from the end of Beowulf--because this piece was edited by Christians in an effort to lay ideals onto Anglo-Saxons a little more easily, it is very unbalanced. Where Beowulf is manly and vicious and violent and an Anglo-Saxon idol, at his death in the end of the piece he is named as being "'the mildest and gentlest of the kings of the world'" (Lewis 116; for some reason CS Lewis does not site the poem itself properly, but it's there, I promise). This makes the editing in the original piece obvious, because it just doesn't gel with who Beowulf proves himself to be. He ripped Grendel's arm off! When he first comes to the castle he sure as heck doesn't uphold Christian modesty or anything like that. As I said, the editing that the scribe made back in the early ADs is painfully obvious at the end of the piece. So using this one specific quote makes Lewis look uneducated or as though he was purposely ignoring the whole rest of the book. Which of course never looks good.
So... as far as CS Lewis's books go... This is definitely my least favourite. It's either poorly written or very dated (or both). He doesn't use his theory well, but in his defense, deconstructionism is a pain in the butt. Still, he could have done a little more than throwing in one deconstructionist buzz phrase. The construction of the whole piece is a little off and awkward too, it's not organized that well. Then again, I also hated and had trouble with That Hideous Strength, and according to CS Lewis himself, the books were philosophical twins. Oops... Should I have read that article that guy sent me before I wrote this? Undoubtedly. But I'm going to go do that now...
Works Cited: Lewis, CS. The Abolition of Man. The Macmillan Company: New York, 1947.
Lewis, CS. Perelandra. Collier Books: New York, 1962.
Anyways, I didn't take any specific notes on the books... Well, I had some on my Kindle, but of course that means next to nothing now... But I have to recommend the series. If you've been looking for a fantasy epic, this is perfect, even if you're not a big fan of Stephen King. It's a lot different from many of his other books, and as always, there are a lot of Easter eggs for those who are a fan of his other books (but it still makes sense without having read every single other thing. In some cases, it would have been a little easier without having read certain things, and in some cases some stuff would seem random if you hadn't [like the cameo made by Dinky Earnshaw from "Everything's Eventual"]. And in some cases it is just neutral and whatever). Also, Desperation gets some play, which is always exciting for me.
As for Abolition of Man, it's one of CS Lewis's lesser-known works, though if you look at the post for That Hideous Strength, or read it, CS Lewis says that they are kind of theoretical or philosophical twins. Well, I've put that book out of my mind completely, so maybe that's why The Abolition of Man wasn't doing it for me. And I just noticed when signing into this account for the first time since December, someone commented on that post with a link to his own thoughts on the book--I skimmed it, it mentioned The Abolition of Man, I should probably read it prior to writing this, too late, I'm going to read it over the weekend instead.
Anywayyys. This book was kind of boring. He applies a lot of deconstructionism to real life, which... Well, deconstructionism in the literary theory sense doesn't really lend itself to real life applications, although I personally enjoy deconstructionist looks at fiction and whatnot. He starts off with deconstructing sections from textbooks he has read, which is all well and good, though he looks at it really subjectively which in this case really gets in the way of his reading. But then he tries to bring over his ideas to apply to real life, and it's bulky and awkward. It's kind of like how I felt when I was wrestling with various Camus works: well, that's an interesting theory, buuuut you only have to be alive to know that things aren't quite like that. CS Lewis seems to fall down a slippery slope, deducing that if textbooks present information that is theoretically wrong like X, society will slowly fall apart and this and that. Though some of his observations ring true, it's not going to be because of a textbook that life gets harder and perhaps less observant of humanity. He clearly doesn't remember grade school, because no-one read their textbooks/purged them immediately upon hitting the summer vacation. The fact that he doesn't remember says something too, eh?
Though unlike Camus there are things that apply to modern life. I also am not sure how CS Lewis thought he was going to try to take apart society without using, you know, sociology. It may seem like it's splitting hairs for me to say deconstructing and a sociological look at something are different and have different situations which they should be applied to--but they do, although they can work in tangent. It was just... really weird. Everything he set up was so awkward and unbalanced for me that I honestly couldn't even focus on the point he was trying to make there.
Oh, and while I'm thinking of it, the cover itself: the bio does not list Narnia in his best-known work. Come on, man.
One particularly weird thing I noticed that also made it hard for me to focus on his argument or figure out his point was his references to Hinduism. Granted, there are a lot of religions that believe that you can achieve enlightenment or become one with the universe or God(s) or whatnot, but in the second Space Trilogy book, CS Lewis says that "What Pantheists falsely hoped of Heaven bad men really received in Hell. They were melted down into their Master, as a lead soldier slips down and loses his shape in the ladle held over the gas ring. The question whether Satan, or one whom Satan has digested, is acting on any given occasion, has in the long run no clear significance. In the meantime, the great thing was not to be tricked again" (173). Obviously such an idea is not viewed positively. So when he (seems to) reference it positively here I was a tad bit thrown. He also relies heavily on concepts of "Tao" to get his points across, but I don't think his understanding of Tao is that great. Certainly the book suffers from his half-self-defined version of the concept as well.
His idea of Tao is also a little confusing because of his emphasis on it: he imagines it as state of mind, which to some extent, unless if I'm mistaken, Taoism is, or plays a major role in it. But again, he has expressed great disdain in other works for non-Christian religions, which this is considered. But it seems that he believes Taoism was the goal of how humanity ought to act/be, and every other religion and philosophy (oh?) is an attempt to line up with it. But... Hm. Well, you understand why I'm having trouble taking this from CS Lewis as opposed to, say, when Jack Kerouac expresses similar beliefs in The Dharma Bums or Desolation Angels, right?
Again, later, he goes on to describe how the sacrifice of oneself for the community would be nonsensical in the terms that the textbook has made which will somehow have a ripple effect on the entirety of society (by the way, what the textbook said was that when a man said something was sublime, it means that "I have sublime feelings" [Lewis 15]. Okay). This apparently 'debunks' sentimental/traditional values... The mindset "claims to be cutting away the parasitic growth of emotion, religious sanction, and inherited taboos, in order that 'real' or 'basic' values may emerge" (Lewis 41-42). One stupid idea in a textbook is not going to cause this. Perhaps it seemed a lot more likely that this would happen in 1947, when this book was first published (1984 wasn't published yet, but Animal Farm would have been fresh in the mind, and Brave New World had been around for over 15 years by that time), but the idea for that time still seems pretty unrealistic. Then again, Britain was also beaten a lot worse in WWII than America physically, so maybe such a negative outlook was expected. Again, the same germ which produced 1984, producing this.
And if he just intended this text book to be the introduction to this idea, what an awkward way to do it! This would be a better example to put in its own paragraph or chapter, not to make it like the vein that runs through it, because it totally throws the paper and makes it lopsided and awkward.
Anywayyyys, the martyrdom thing. Basically he just says, should people like this succeed, you could never expect sacrifices for other men or community--shame wouldn't move them, nor love, nor whatever. In fact, nothing could move them either way. Okay. But if people are this flat, you could presumably just say, "Go get yourself killed". Of course, my idea takes into account that there will be people controlling brain dead masses. Which, should this come to fruition, would have to be the case, unless if everybody evolves backwards into cave men.
He also brings up, in the middle of nowhere, as an ill-fitting example, that of sexual satisfaction. This is another topic that kind of brings me pause when he brings up, because I don't think CS Lewis was all that experienced with, well, sex. So he says that "For of course sexual desire, being instinctive, is to be gratified whenever it does not conflict with with the preservation of the species" (Lewis 45). This doesn't get mentioned again till about a dozen pages later, in a different context. So what is CS Lewis talking about here? Against overpopulation? Protection of the parents'/mother's health? That seems a little modern for this, but since CS Lewis changes the subject right afterwards, we'll never know.
Oh yeah, on page 47, CS Lewis uses the phrase "infinite regress"--which is akin to putting a stamp on the cover over the book that says "I AM DECONSTRUCTING". I recognized what was going on prior to that, but upon seeing that I just kind of rolled my eyes. Deconstructionist ideals can be applied to the human psyche and real life, but this is the first time I've ever seen something taken apart by it (I'm thinking about it now, and you could argue that Camus's theories behind his works make him a deconstructionist, but it's so easy to destroy his works with deconstructionism that it doesn't even matter man), and boy is it awkward. The fact that he never brings in any other deconstructionist buzzwords or even just this earlier on gives me a feeling that he was sort of piddling around, kind of unsure about the theory he wanted to use. Then again, he didn't have the benefit of a handy-dandy book by Lois Tyson... So yeah, I'm probably being kind of harsh...
"If man chooses to treat himself as raw material, raw material he will be: not raw material to be manipulated, as he fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite, that is, mere Nature, in the person of his dehumanized Conditioners" (Lewis 84).
"A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery" (Lewis 84-85). : / But your use of dogmatic makes this statement problematic...
At the end of this book there are sections of quotes which go to support his Tao theory and the laws he believes all cultures or many (especially Classical cultures, it must be noted) uphold. Personally, I think these would have been more useful, you know, in the actual paper used to support and strengthen it, but the quotes are still interesting:
"'Terrify not men or God will terrify thee'" (Lewis 97; Ancient Egyptian, Precepts of Ptahhetep).
"'"To live according to nature is the supreme good"'" (Lewis 107; Roman, Cicero).
"'The second of these achievements is no less glorious than the first; for while the first did good on one occasion, the second will continue to benefit the state forever'" (Lewis 108; Roman, Cicero).
Also problematic is that in this section, he includes a quote from the end of Beowulf--because this piece was edited by Christians in an effort to lay ideals onto Anglo-Saxons a little more easily, it is very unbalanced. Where Beowulf is manly and vicious and violent and an Anglo-Saxon idol, at his death in the end of the piece he is named as being "'the mildest and gentlest of the kings of the world'" (Lewis 116; for some reason CS Lewis does not site the poem itself properly, but it's there, I promise). This makes the editing in the original piece obvious, because it just doesn't gel with who Beowulf proves himself to be. He ripped Grendel's arm off! When he first comes to the castle he sure as heck doesn't uphold Christian modesty or anything like that. As I said, the editing that the scribe made back in the early ADs is painfully obvious at the end of the piece. So using this one specific quote makes Lewis look uneducated or as though he was purposely ignoring the whole rest of the book. Which of course never looks good.
So... as far as CS Lewis's books go... This is definitely my least favourite. It's either poorly written or very dated (or both). He doesn't use his theory well, but in his defense, deconstructionism is a pain in the butt. Still, he could have done a little more than throwing in one deconstructionist buzz phrase. The construction of the whole piece is a little off and awkward too, it's not organized that well. Then again, I also hated and had trouble with That Hideous Strength, and according to CS Lewis himself, the books were philosophical twins. Oops... Should I have read that article that guy sent me before I wrote this? Undoubtedly. But I'm going to go do that now...
Works Cited: Lewis, CS. The Abolition of Man. The Macmillan Company: New York, 1947.
Lewis, CS. Perelandra. Collier Books: New York, 1962.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Dreamland by Sarah Dessen
Hey there. Look, posting more than once in three months, dang. Actually, I didn't think that would be happening, since I was in the middle of Stephen King's Dark Tower series--but the file for the fourth book (it's on my Kindle) appears to be corrupt, so here I am.
I actually read this book about seven million times between sixth grade and my freshman or sophomore year of high school, because I was in an awful reading rut and although I did eventually get sick of it, I didn't know what else to read. And I'm speaking of this book, and of a wide variety of books which were basically Sarah Dessen books, and I have to say, she writes the same thing over and over and over. I got to Just Listen before I figured that out (also that was the name of the reading book we had in third grade, loooool). Anyways, Pete's niece mentioned that she just bought this and I was like, hey, I remember that book, I really liked it! So I decided to see if it was still any good or if I was just awful.
Okay, first of all, the cover. I just took a class on Literary Publishing, and we had a two week long unit on the covers of books: misrepresenting the text and whatnot, how that's pretty common but how authors rarely have a say in it, and how you also want to make the book look appealing and cool. We had to write a paper on a book that failed at having an appealing or representative cover, and one that succeeded in both respects. Anyways... I can't help but apply that here.
The cover of the copy I had was dark blue, there was a girl out on a pier and it's all kind of in shadow or darkened. Her reflection in the water is missing the face--it's simply not there. The title is on the bottom in white. I'd say this is pretty representative of the book--the main character, Caitlin, becomes entrenched in an abusive relationship and she loses herself. So the symbolization is there, and the cover has that dark, dreary feel.
The cover my local library has is a little creepier--the image of the ocean is still there, but the cover looks pieced together. There's a picture of a girl's face which has been torn up but has since been taped back together, another picture of a girl whose face has been cut out, and a fragment of lined paper with handwriting on it. Again, there is the repeated symbol of the girl who has lost herself. Caitlin's last gift from her sister who ran away at the very start of the novel was a diary, and I think what words are written on the paper on the cover are actually lines right out of the book. And there's an important moment at the end of the book where Caitlin does tape a picture of herself back together, showing how she has rebuilt herself. So this cover probably represents the book the best, though it is really creepy looking.
This cover is light blue, Sarah Dessen's name is in huge letters on the top in darker blue (though I suppose she's popular enough with the teen romance sect for her name to be a selling point), and the title is in little lowercase letters at the bottom. The picture is several flat glass squares (like coasters in how I imagine them) on top of each other. There's a heart showing on them; either a heart-shaped bit of plastic was placed behind the stacked coasters or they all have red colouring together that adds up to the shape of a heart (I guess that's not really important). ...What? This book is about an abusive relationship. I mean, I guess glass can shatter, but there is a full heart here. Not broken or messed up, it's a book about a sixteen-year-old caught in abusive relationship. Or maybe it's meant to say it looks like love? Or something? Either way, I think this cover is dumb and misrepresents the book pretty hard. But I guess I can see how it has grabability? I mean, it's pretty generic, but I guess your average teen looking for high school romances isn't going to care about that?
And this time when I read the book, I noticed that in Sarah Dessen's introduction she included the phrase "who survived my lost years and, like me, lived to tell" (no number, but it's there, I promise). Which made me feel guilty when I really wanted to rip into the book, because to me it seems to indicate that she was basing this from some extent off her own life and had a similar experience in a bad relationship like Caitlin... or perhaps she ran away from home, like Caitlin's older sister Cassandra. Cailtin is lost metaphysically (is that the right word to use?) and Cassandra is physically lost. Cassandra ran off at age eighteen before college started to be with a guy named Adam in NYC (he works on a trash TV show stationed there, which strikes me as a little funny because Cassandra was meant to go to Yale, and Jerry Springer, Maury, Steve Wilkos, etc, are all filmed in CT). And Cass at age sixteen gets on the cheerleading scene and meets Rogerson and eventually we see he is true colours and so on.
Okay, so I've read the book like ninety times, and I'm older now, so I'm noticing a lot more. First of all, the book starts on Caitlin's sixteenth birthday. I was like eleven when I first read this, so it seemed normal, but I'm four years older than that now, so every moment that I remember that Cait is only sixteen I'm like, whaaaaaaaaaat? Anyways, that first chapter is all full of foreshadowing. Cass leaves that day, and because of that no-one notices the cut/swelling on Caitlin's face from when she tripped that morning, as no-one will truly notice what's wrong with Caitlin at the very end, and so on.
Oh, it's also to weird to think of Cassandra as being eighteen cause I'm two years past that too, and in my third year of college. Whoops.
One thing that always bothers me is the guy's name. The abusive boyfriend is named Rogerson Biscoe. Who's ever heard of Rogerson as a first name? Oh, also, the first time she meets him he's wearing penny loafers with no socks (Dessen 50). EW. Let me be petty and say, EW. And her friend Kelly says he looks like a drug dealer. SPOILER ALERT. (The second time she sees him she watches him do a deal, though I don't think she realizes it at the time.)
Oh, Caitlin lives in Lakeview too. Apparently this is a real place... Somewhere. I saw it on a list online, you know, "areas from books based on real places" and stuff--like how Scott Pilgrim is very clearly set in an area of Canada, etc. Not so much in this book, but in other books you see similar things: I hated her book Just Listen, but in it you see Remy and Dexter (I think that was his name) from This Lullaby in it, which was really cute... In some of the other books, the book that Remy's mom wrote appears... The girl in The Truth About Forever is dismissed in another book... I do love it when authors do things like that, and I liked it a lot when Dessen did it. Anyways, my point is is that all of the books are pretty much set in the same place.
Oh, and Rogerson tells her about how he has all these misdemeanors. All or most of them are because of selling pot (this was written in 2000). Still, I would be kind of put off by that. (Then again, she's sixteen? I don't know. The existence of any criminal record would make me wary, even if I really liked the guy.) Anyways, Rogerson refers to such misdemeanors as "long stories" and Caitlin does come out and say that he "apparently had a lot of 'long stories'" (Dessen 71).
And I like how surprised she got at the sight of pot. Oh no, pot! But it's 2000 so I guess that can be excused? It still seemed kind of comical to me. Anyways, she takes a single hit and becomes SO HIGH that she's scared to use her hands. One hit is not going to get you that high, unless if it's from a bong. Anyways, I was just like come on, calm down. You're that one girl. You're the Amanda of this party.
Oh, God--the part that has remained my favourite since the first time I've read it: "'How did you meet our Rogerson?'... 'At a party,' I stammered. 'We met at a party.' 'Oh, yes,' she said absently, as if she wasn't really listening, still looking at something over my head. 'He likes those'" (Dessen 83). Okay, there's something clearly off with the mom. But it still makes me laugh every time.
Okay, one thing I hate about Sarah Dessen is that it seems like in every book she complains about Pink Floyd and talks about how much she hates them. Get over it, Sarah Dessen, f'real.
Okay, the first thing that always comes as a hint to me... Well, Rogerson knows a lot of random trivia. He says it's because he's grandfather would buy him books of trivia and test him, which I noticed and thought as more sinister than any other time I've read it before. (Also, I should mention that you actually see his dad punch him. And the mom clearly has issues.) Anyways, the first thing that always struck me as odd and a little off, even the first time I read it, is when she is talking about all the places she'd randomly ask him trivia and what she'd ask him to try and stump him. The section ends with this: "'Rogerson,' I asked him sweetly as we sat watching a video in the pool house, 'where would I find the pelagic zone?' 'In the open sea,' he said. 'Now shut up and eat your Junior Mints'" (Dessen 115). Excuse me? I would have gotten real sassy real fast. Don't tell me to shut up. Or eat Junior Mints. They're gross. But props to Dessen for dropping that warning there.
Caitlin meets my favourite character, Corinna, through Rogerson--he's friends with Corinna's boyfriend... "She had a pretty face and cat-shaped eyes" (Dessen 116). Did she now?
Anyways. Corinna leaves David by the end of the book--year after year they said they'd go to California, this and that, David was continually shiftless, and eventually she just up and leaves, despite the fact that they seemed like they were so madly and deeply in love. The lifestyle was too rough, too poor, and Corinna was working her butt off, and David was not doing a thing. But that's how Caitlin says she imagined Cassandra and Adam were living (before Corinna left, of course). And, this makes me wonder about the end. I guess I'm going to have to reveal the end (I've already pretty much given it all away anyways), but when Caitlin returns home after her stay at a recovery faculty, her sister is there to meet her. I always assumed Cassandra came back because she had been stuck in a similar situation with Adam as Cait did with Rogerson, but it's possible that she was like Corinna and had the luck to see it and get out before Corinna did. Then again, there's a third possibility which never occurred to me before this time--she could just have been going home to greet her sister. Who knows? Their next-door neighbours were in a similar situation that turned out well, they've been together since Boo was eighteen and it worked. So I guess Dessen's point wouldn't be that it always turns out one way, just that there are many ways it can turn out. You know?
The scene on page 133-134, when Caitlin sees her friend Rina crying in her car over a break-up, "fiddling with her radio, reaching up every few seconds to wipe her eyes with her shirtsleeve or run her fingers through her hair. Every once in a while she'd start singing along with the radio, slamming her hand on the steering wheel to emphasize one chorus or line, and then her shoulders would start shaking. It was clear. Rina was driving and crying" (Dessen 133-134). This SAME EXACT SCENE happens in This Lullaby. A girl whose boyfriend that she had been with for years breaks up with her, or she finds out he's cheating on her or something--Remy comforts her friend at the Quick Zip (or whatever), and they happen to see the guy in traffic--she launches a cup of soda at him and hits him in the face with it. And it's awesome.
Anyways, this makes her late to hang out with Rogerson, and by the time she gets home to meet him, he's gone. They can't meet until later, she tries to joke with him after he gets so uptight about her being late--she playfully calls him a big baby and he punches her in the eye. And it continues. Sarah Dessen does, I believe, do a very good job at portraying the relationship after the abuse begins. Possibly because, as we noted earlier, Dessen may have been involved in such a relationship at one point in her life.
Anyways... There's a huge chunk of pages I haven't marked--not until seventy pages later, when Corinna leaves, and David creepily hits on Cait before she leaves the house too. Anyways, after that there's another ten, fifteen page break to when Rogerson is finally confronted and jailed, and Caitlin is sent to the care facility, and then the next is when she tears up the picture, which I already talked about. She gets a letter from Corinna that's really sweet (Corinna had made it to New Mexico), and a letter to her sister... Well, that's it for my notes, except when the sister comes back at the end, but of course I just talked about that.
So, in retrospect? It's a decent book, and Dessen is very eloquent in Dreamland, but I'm definitely out of the age range for this genre or whatever. I'm glad that of all Sarah Dessen's books, I chose to reread this one. This is the first of all her books that I read, anyways. I definitely won't be rereading her other books though. Not a bad choice though. Just don't pick it up thinking it's going to be romantic! Bad cover designers. Bad.
Works Cited: Dessen, Sarah. Dreamland. Speak: United States of America, 2000.
I actually read this book about seven million times between sixth grade and my freshman or sophomore year of high school, because I was in an awful reading rut and although I did eventually get sick of it, I didn't know what else to read. And I'm speaking of this book, and of a wide variety of books which were basically Sarah Dessen books, and I have to say, she writes the same thing over and over and over. I got to Just Listen before I figured that out (also that was the name of the reading book we had in third grade, loooool). Anyways, Pete's niece mentioned that she just bought this and I was like, hey, I remember that book, I really liked it! So I decided to see if it was still any good or if I was just awful.
Okay, first of all, the cover. I just took a class on Literary Publishing, and we had a two week long unit on the covers of books: misrepresenting the text and whatnot, how that's pretty common but how authors rarely have a say in it, and how you also want to make the book look appealing and cool. We had to write a paper on a book that failed at having an appealing or representative cover, and one that succeeded in both respects. Anyways... I can't help but apply that here.
The cover of the copy I had was dark blue, there was a girl out on a pier and it's all kind of in shadow or darkened. Her reflection in the water is missing the face--it's simply not there. The title is on the bottom in white. I'd say this is pretty representative of the book--the main character, Caitlin, becomes entrenched in an abusive relationship and she loses herself. So the symbolization is there, and the cover has that dark, dreary feel.
The cover my local library has is a little creepier--the image of the ocean is still there, but the cover looks pieced together. There's a picture of a girl's face which has been torn up but has since been taped back together, another picture of a girl whose face has been cut out, and a fragment of lined paper with handwriting on it. Again, there is the repeated symbol of the girl who has lost herself. Caitlin's last gift from her sister who ran away at the very start of the novel was a diary, and I think what words are written on the paper on the cover are actually lines right out of the book. And there's an important moment at the end of the book where Caitlin does tape a picture of herself back together, showing how she has rebuilt herself. So this cover probably represents the book the best, though it is really creepy looking.
This cover is light blue, Sarah Dessen's name is in huge letters on the top in darker blue (though I suppose she's popular enough with the teen romance sect for her name to be a selling point), and the title is in little lowercase letters at the bottom. The picture is several flat glass squares (like coasters in how I imagine them) on top of each other. There's a heart showing on them; either a heart-shaped bit of plastic was placed behind the stacked coasters or they all have red colouring together that adds up to the shape of a heart (I guess that's not really important). ...What? This book is about an abusive relationship. I mean, I guess glass can shatter, but there is a full heart here. Not broken or messed up, it's a book about a sixteen-year-old caught in abusive relationship. Or maybe it's meant to say it looks like love? Or something? Either way, I think this cover is dumb and misrepresents the book pretty hard. But I guess I can see how it has grabability? I mean, it's pretty generic, but I guess your average teen looking for high school romances isn't going to care about that?
And this time when I read the book, I noticed that in Sarah Dessen's introduction she included the phrase "who survived my lost years and, like me, lived to tell" (no number, but it's there, I promise). Which made me feel guilty when I really wanted to rip into the book, because to me it seems to indicate that she was basing this from some extent off her own life and had a similar experience in a bad relationship like Caitlin... or perhaps she ran away from home, like Caitlin's older sister Cassandra. Cailtin is lost metaphysically (is that the right word to use?) and Cassandra is physically lost. Cassandra ran off at age eighteen before college started to be with a guy named Adam in NYC (he works on a trash TV show stationed there, which strikes me as a little funny because Cassandra was meant to go to Yale, and Jerry Springer, Maury, Steve Wilkos, etc, are all filmed in CT). And Cass at age sixteen gets on the cheerleading scene and meets Rogerson and eventually we see he is true colours and so on.
Okay, so I've read the book like ninety times, and I'm older now, so I'm noticing a lot more. First of all, the book starts on Caitlin's sixteenth birthday. I was like eleven when I first read this, so it seemed normal, but I'm four years older than that now, so every moment that I remember that Cait is only sixteen I'm like, whaaaaaaaaaat? Anyways, that first chapter is all full of foreshadowing. Cass leaves that day, and because of that no-one notices the cut/swelling on Caitlin's face from when she tripped that morning, as no-one will truly notice what's wrong with Caitlin at the very end, and so on.
Oh, it's also to weird to think of Cassandra as being eighteen cause I'm two years past that too, and in my third year of college. Whoops.
One thing that always bothers me is the guy's name. The abusive boyfriend is named Rogerson Biscoe. Who's ever heard of Rogerson as a first name? Oh, also, the first time she meets him he's wearing penny loafers with no socks (Dessen 50). EW. Let me be petty and say, EW. And her friend Kelly says he looks like a drug dealer. SPOILER ALERT. (The second time she sees him she watches him do a deal, though I don't think she realizes it at the time.)
Oh, Caitlin lives in Lakeview too. Apparently this is a real place... Somewhere. I saw it on a list online, you know, "areas from books based on real places" and stuff--like how Scott Pilgrim is very clearly set in an area of Canada, etc. Not so much in this book, but in other books you see similar things: I hated her book Just Listen, but in it you see Remy and Dexter (I think that was his name) from This Lullaby in it, which was really cute... In some of the other books, the book that Remy's mom wrote appears... The girl in The Truth About Forever is dismissed in another book... I do love it when authors do things like that, and I liked it a lot when Dessen did it. Anyways, my point is is that all of the books are pretty much set in the same place.
Oh, and Rogerson tells her about how he has all these misdemeanors. All or most of them are because of selling pot (this was written in 2000). Still, I would be kind of put off by that. (Then again, she's sixteen? I don't know. The existence of any criminal record would make me wary, even if I really liked the guy.) Anyways, Rogerson refers to such misdemeanors as "long stories" and Caitlin does come out and say that he "apparently had a lot of 'long stories'" (Dessen 71).
And I like how surprised she got at the sight of pot. Oh no, pot! But it's 2000 so I guess that can be excused? It still seemed kind of comical to me. Anyways, she takes a single hit and becomes SO HIGH that she's scared to use her hands. One hit is not going to get you that high, unless if it's from a bong. Anyways, I was just like come on, calm down. You're that one girl. You're the Amanda of this party.
Oh, God--the part that has remained my favourite since the first time I've read it: "'How did you meet our Rogerson?'... 'At a party,' I stammered. 'We met at a party.' 'Oh, yes,' she said absently, as if she wasn't really listening, still looking at something over my head. 'He likes those'" (Dessen 83). Okay, there's something clearly off with the mom. But it still makes me laugh every time.
Okay, one thing I hate about Sarah Dessen is that it seems like in every book she complains about Pink Floyd and talks about how much she hates them. Get over it, Sarah Dessen, f'real.
Okay, the first thing that always comes as a hint to me... Well, Rogerson knows a lot of random trivia. He says it's because he's grandfather would buy him books of trivia and test him, which I noticed and thought as more sinister than any other time I've read it before. (Also, I should mention that you actually see his dad punch him. And the mom clearly has issues.) Anyways, the first thing that always struck me as odd and a little off, even the first time I read it, is when she is talking about all the places she'd randomly ask him trivia and what she'd ask him to try and stump him. The section ends with this: "'Rogerson,' I asked him sweetly as we sat watching a video in the pool house, 'where would I find the pelagic zone?' 'In the open sea,' he said. 'Now shut up and eat your Junior Mints'" (Dessen 115). Excuse me? I would have gotten real sassy real fast. Don't tell me to shut up. Or eat Junior Mints. They're gross. But props to Dessen for dropping that warning there.
Caitlin meets my favourite character, Corinna, through Rogerson--he's friends with Corinna's boyfriend... "She had a pretty face and cat-shaped eyes" (Dessen 116). Did she now?
Anyways. Corinna leaves David by the end of the book--year after year they said they'd go to California, this and that, David was continually shiftless, and eventually she just up and leaves, despite the fact that they seemed like they were so madly and deeply in love. The lifestyle was too rough, too poor, and Corinna was working her butt off, and David was not doing a thing. But that's how Caitlin says she imagined Cassandra and Adam were living (before Corinna left, of course). And, this makes me wonder about the end. I guess I'm going to have to reveal the end (I've already pretty much given it all away anyways), but when Caitlin returns home after her stay at a recovery faculty, her sister is there to meet her. I always assumed Cassandra came back because she had been stuck in a similar situation with Adam as Cait did with Rogerson, but it's possible that she was like Corinna and had the luck to see it and get out before Corinna did. Then again, there's a third possibility which never occurred to me before this time--she could just have been going home to greet her sister. Who knows? Their next-door neighbours were in a similar situation that turned out well, they've been together since Boo was eighteen and it worked. So I guess Dessen's point wouldn't be that it always turns out one way, just that there are many ways it can turn out. You know?
The scene on page 133-134, when Caitlin sees her friend Rina crying in her car over a break-up, "fiddling with her radio, reaching up every few seconds to wipe her eyes with her shirtsleeve or run her fingers through her hair. Every once in a while she'd start singing along with the radio, slamming her hand on the steering wheel to emphasize one chorus or line, and then her shoulders would start shaking. It was clear. Rina was driving and crying" (Dessen 133-134). This SAME EXACT SCENE happens in This Lullaby. A girl whose boyfriend that she had been with for years breaks up with her, or she finds out he's cheating on her or something--Remy comforts her friend at the Quick Zip (or whatever), and they happen to see the guy in traffic--she launches a cup of soda at him and hits him in the face with it. And it's awesome.
Anyways, this makes her late to hang out with Rogerson, and by the time she gets home to meet him, he's gone. They can't meet until later, she tries to joke with him after he gets so uptight about her being late--she playfully calls him a big baby and he punches her in the eye. And it continues. Sarah Dessen does, I believe, do a very good job at portraying the relationship after the abuse begins. Possibly because, as we noted earlier, Dessen may have been involved in such a relationship at one point in her life.
Anyways... There's a huge chunk of pages I haven't marked--not until seventy pages later, when Corinna leaves, and David creepily hits on Cait before she leaves the house too. Anyways, after that there's another ten, fifteen page break to when Rogerson is finally confronted and jailed, and Caitlin is sent to the care facility, and then the next is when she tears up the picture, which I already talked about. She gets a letter from Corinna that's really sweet (Corinna had made it to New Mexico), and a letter to her sister... Well, that's it for my notes, except when the sister comes back at the end, but of course I just talked about that.
So, in retrospect? It's a decent book, and Dessen is very eloquent in Dreamland, but I'm definitely out of the age range for this genre or whatever. I'm glad that of all Sarah Dessen's books, I chose to reread this one. This is the first of all her books that I read, anyways. I definitely won't be rereading her other books though. Not a bad choice though. Just don't pick it up thinking it's going to be romantic! Bad cover designers. Bad.
Works Cited: Dessen, Sarah. Dreamland. Speak: United States of America, 2000.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
I finally finished The Hunger Games! Well, the series. Pete's niece had the book and she lent it to me, which is amazingly awesome of her. (Maybe she'll lend me the movie next??) Also the book--for some reason, the momentum kind of died while I was reading the second book, but I picked right up on the third one easily and enthusiastically.
Apparently I wasn't really clear on the end of the last book, and there wasn't much of a recap in this book at the beginning (whoops). But the members of the Quarter Quell and districts had planned a huge rebellion, and now it's basically Panem against the Capitol. (If you need an apparently not-so-great recap, I've gone over the first two books in the series!) Katniss was knocked out during the Game with a large coil of wire, so she's suffering a concussion, and we enter the book with her, just as confused as she is.
That's basically what we know at the beginning of the book, and the fact that District 13 has just moved underground. They have been in agreement with the Capitol this whole time to pretend to be obliterated--the Capitol threatened to actually destroy them with nuclear arms, but District 13 also has nuclear arms. There was a really cool fan-made map going around Tumblr a little before I read the books of Panem. I don't remember it really well, but District 13 was located in or very close to New England (I'm pretty sure Connecticut was a part of it, cause I was kind of like, oh damn...). There's a nuclear submarine base in Groton, and Three-Mile island is in New York, apparently... So that may be accurate. I have a feeling that although this book is set in the future, its future started not too far after this time now. (Which makes me wonder what the rest of the world is like...) So, anyways. The rebellion is centred in District 13, which has, in X (up to 75) years, thrived.
So anyways. The people of the Rebellion want Katniss to be their leader, their Mockingjay, because she was the Girl Who Was on Fire--and she inspired the revolution, or had very good timing. From the start, it's clear that the rebellion that is intended is very similar to what those in the Capitol did to Panem... For example, Alma Coin, the leader--"president"--of the Rebellion, is just as cruel and conniving as Snow. In fact, she's a little more frightening, since she's supposed to be a "good guy". But she watches Katniss in the same way, and she treats her the same way as President Snow when he visited Katniss's house in the last book. She also clearly has her own goals in mind. Katniss is aware of the similarities from the get-go--she doesn't equate Coin with Snow until the near climax of the book, but she notices the similarities and necessities between the Rebellion and the Capitol's shows:
"What they want is for me to truly take on the role they designed for me. The symbol of the revolution. The Mockingjay. It isn't enough, what I've done in the past, defying the Capitol in the Games, providing a rallying point. I must now become the actual leader, the face, the voice, the embodiment of the revolution. The person who the districts--most of which are now openly at war with the Capitol--can count on to blaze the path to victory. I won't have to do it alone. They have a whole team of people to make me over, dress me, write my speeches, orchestrate my appearances--as if that doesn't sound horribly familiar--and all I have to do is play my part" (Collins 10-11).
"As a rebel, I thought I'd get to look more like myself. But it seems a televised rebel has her own standards to live up to" (Collins 60).
Okay, so I skip a lot. A lot of the beginning is Katniss recovering and the new life in the underground homes of District 13. Interesting, but not really worth my recounting, other than that life is very different in the new District. Everything is highly regulated, down to the food and daily tasks, which was obviously necessary in the District's early days of survival, and has been carried on because it clearly works. Katniss spends most of her time ignoring her schedule. Eventually she accepts that she must be the Mockingjay--it also gives her the chance to force President Coin to agree to some terms: for example, she saves her designing team, the other tributes, a few things for her family (she saves Prim's cat!), etc... So then they start filming this and that to get on the Capitol's television systems. Haymitch gathers a think-tank to try and figure out how to incite the most passion and fervour in Katniss that will scare the Capitol and inspire the rebels. This provides a two-three page summary of everything in the series that was emotionally wrenching: her volunteering for Prim in the Game of the first book, when she sand for Rue, when she kissed Peeta what could have been good-bye (well, that was Octavia), the berries, trying to help Mags in the last book... I only bring it up because as Katniss starts to flash back, it kind of forces the reader to flashback with real clarity, and yeah, I got a little emotional. (Not about the Peeta stuff, mostly when they brought up Rue and Mags.) Oh! And in the last book, to heighten dramatic appeal before the games, Katniss came up with the lie that she was pregnant with Peeta's baby (because remember, the angle since the first game was that they were together)--Haymitch covers this by saying that the child spontaneously aborted due to the trauma in the first games. (More specifically, an electric shock that Katniss endured.
Katniss also insists on fighting alongside the rebels as much as possible. She doesn't like just being the figurehead, which I can respect. Coin is incredulous: "'And if you're killed?' asks Coin. 'Make sure you get some footage. You can use that, anyway,' I answer" (Collins 76). This was kind of a poor idea to put in Coin's head, because towards the end of the book Coin sends Katniss on a mission that is supposed to kill her and make her be the martyr. (Though honestly Coin probably could have come up with that on her own, even if Katniss didn't plant the seed for it here... Coin gets pretty slimy by the end.)
Oh yes, Peeta was also captured by the Capitol. Caesar Flickerman continues to interview him, but... Ugh, I don't want to think he's a bad guy. He seems too goofy (in my head, I haven't seen the movie yet) and friendly to be a bad guy. Almost... A lot of the Capitol seems to be made up of bubble heads (hey, Scott Westerfield!), and that's kind of the feeling I get about him. He's sort of higher up on the food chain, but he's still basically just kind of there... But! President Snow is fattening him up and torturing him alternately to mess with Katniss, because he knows that she and the others in the District can see his broadcasts. He's using him to torment her, so eventually they do rescue him--but he has been brainwashed with the hallucinogens from the Tracker Jack's venom (modified yellow jackets). Eventually they work most of it out of his system, but I'm getting ahead of myself...
Anyways! As a mission of goodwill, Katniss visits the infirmary, but I don't think it's the one where her mother and Prim are working. They send her to inspire the hurt soldiers, to help her image, and to bring hope to all. Everyone gets excited to see her, she is being hugged, kissed, and adored by all. The touch makes her nervous at first, but she kind of... leaves her own body, or gets too wrapped up in her thoughts. What I noticed was Gale's word choice when he spoke to her after: "'I can't believe you let all those people touch you. I kept expecting you to make a break for the door'" (Collins 91). I think this is just me digging too deep--I wouldn't really go ahead and say that Katniss is a Christ figure, but there's a bit in the Bible where a poor, sick woman (what she was sick from differs depending on where you read it, Craig Thompson in Blankets says that she was "subject to bleeding", but other translations or retellings sometimes just say that she was very ill or what have you) touches Jesus briefly. The crowd is so thick that that is all she can manage. Anyways, a little bit of Jesus's power leaves him and goes into her and heals her, because her faith in him was so strong. Obviously Katniss isn't the divine, and again, it's a long shot to make that connection (I think), but it's the first thing that I though of. Anyways, the hospital is bombed moments later--which inspires Katniss to give a fury-fueled broadcast on the site, after attacking and taking down some bombers with Gale.
Oh yes, her speech--well it's really the end, directed at President Snow directly, that's the powerful part: "'Fire is catching!' I am shouting now, determined that he will not miss a word. 'And if we burn, you burn with us!'" (Collins 100).
"'It takes ten times as long to put yourself together as it does to fall apart'" (Collins 156).
So... Next note is on page 180, after they've gotten Peeta back. Like I said, he was brainwashed into hating Katniss and wanting to kill her with Tracker Jack venom. There's just a little entomology thing--instead of thinking the mutated bees are yellow jackets, they explain the name (though they admit that they're not sure) by saying that it comes from the "old English" word hijack. Just making a note of the phrase "old English". I still think the "75 years" of hunger games still started in like 2030, 2050... I think that is still acceptable...
Um... So as attacks get closer to the Capitol and the rebels gain more ground, you begin seeing more of the different characters. Peeta's out, of course, Katniss is kind of there, but caught up in it, President Coin gets nastier, people grow closer to Katniss... And Gale becomes more and more extreme. As in, he'll firebomb places that have citizens as well as enemies, or their imprisoned fighters. He doesn't care, the ends justify the means. So he gets very frightening. Now, of course there's the Peeta/Gale debate. I wasn't really into that part as much... But my roommate last year did this BS, "It's not about them, they represent the life she chooses to have, or how she chose to stage her rebellion". That's BS hardcore right there. It's also an insult to Katniss, I think, like she couldn't just go off on her own if she chose. And she can (okay, she doesn't. But she is strong enough to make her own decisions about everything, which she does through the entire book--when she is kowtowed into something at the very, very end, it actually seems really out of character). And Gale's harsh measures frighten her, because she sees that they're so close to President Snow's or Coin's measures. So... that's my rant. It's a little out of the blue, but the Team Peeta/Gale thing is really dumb, and this made me think of it. Deal with it. (Also that was SUCH a dumb way of putting it, ex-roommate.)
Oh, Katniss even has the concept of Panem et Circenses explained to her--I would not consider this too much, however, as this is a book meant for the YA audience. Probably your average 13-15 year old (this is me straight-up making up numbers right here) isn't that up on Roman history/concepts/culture/et cetera--though I'm disappointed in every YA reader who couldn't at least recognize names like Caesar. And Katniss obviously wasn't aware of the concept either, it explains the name (I didn't even put two and two together, though I got nearly every other Latin reference), and so on.
Skip ahead, and several teams are planning the final assault on the Capitol. (Sorry, it's been a few weeks since I updated, and I can't entirely remember what transpired, other than a lot of bombings...) President Coin puts Katniss on a team with Peeta, who has not fully recovered, and basically is planning on Peeta snapping, killing or mortally wounding her (if the assault does not), making her a martyr, and getting her out of the way. Spoiler alert; Katniss makes it, Peeta makes it, but most of the other team is killed, in absolutely horrible ways. Lizard-mutts appear and kill Finnick--it is the most horrifying death in the whole series. As he's climbing to follow Katniss and the mutt pulls him down and chew him in half. Made even more horrifying because he did marry the girl he loved right before, and I think they know that she's pregnant... I literally could not believe that she'd do that. I read the passage over about five times.
Next note: every soldier (except Peeta) has poison-in-a-pill called Nightlock. The deadly nightshade/hemlock. That is all.
I... that's my last note before we get to the aftermath of this final assault. Snow is captured, hundreds are killed, Katniss is firebombed into a naked, peeling mess, and in the cruelest irony of the whole series--Prim is killed, and Katniss sees her death. All of this started out of a desire to save/protect her little sister, and at the climax, she is killed. That was another thing I could not believe.
And, of course the irony: Katniss really did become the girl who was on fire...
Anyways, when Katniss recovers, she gets the final ceremonial arrow: the last arrow of war, intended to kill the captured President Snow. The climax is when she aims the arrow at Snow, already beaten and nearly dead, hating him--
--and she shoots Coin, also in the room, twice as cruel as Snow. Coin is instantly killed, and Snow chokes on his own blood laughing. Plutarch becomes temporary head.
Anyways... The most unbelievable part of this whole series is the epilogue. Katniss realizes that she doesn't need Gale's "fire, kindled with rage and hatred" (Collins 388). Peeta has recovered, and is sweet and gentle. So they end up together. Good. That doesn't really bother me, didn't really care about the romantic subplot (other than Finnick's), so good. I like the end. But the epilogue! Katniss has had two children at Peeta's insistence, and it took "five, ten, fifteen years" (Collins 389) to convince her. I don't care how long it took. Katniss having kids... No matter what... Just seems horribly out of character, terribly so. She never even refers to either child by name, which also seems to signal that she doesn't really like them/isn't that attached to them, whatever. I would have been happier without the epilogue, probably. It just threw a monkey wrench in, right at the very end...
MLA Citation Information: Collins, Suzanne. Mockingjay. Scholastic Press: United States of America, 2010.
Hey, remember that time I finished writing this in September and just never typed up the works cited until now? Oops.
Apparently I wasn't really clear on the end of the last book, and there wasn't much of a recap in this book at the beginning (whoops). But the members of the Quarter Quell and districts had planned a huge rebellion, and now it's basically Panem against the Capitol. (If you need an apparently not-so-great recap, I've gone over the first two books in the series!) Katniss was knocked out during the Game with a large coil of wire, so she's suffering a concussion, and we enter the book with her, just as confused as she is.
That's basically what we know at the beginning of the book, and the fact that District 13 has just moved underground. They have been in agreement with the Capitol this whole time to pretend to be obliterated--the Capitol threatened to actually destroy them with nuclear arms, but District 13 also has nuclear arms. There was a really cool fan-made map going around Tumblr a little before I read the books of Panem. I don't remember it really well, but District 13 was located in or very close to New England (I'm pretty sure Connecticut was a part of it, cause I was kind of like, oh damn...). There's a nuclear submarine base in Groton, and Three-Mile island is in New York, apparently... So that may be accurate. I have a feeling that although this book is set in the future, its future started not too far after this time now. (Which makes me wonder what the rest of the world is like...) So, anyways. The rebellion is centred in District 13, which has, in X (up to 75) years, thrived.
So anyways. The people of the Rebellion want Katniss to be their leader, their Mockingjay, because she was the Girl Who Was on Fire--and she inspired the revolution, or had very good timing. From the start, it's clear that the rebellion that is intended is very similar to what those in the Capitol did to Panem... For example, Alma Coin, the leader--"president"--of the Rebellion, is just as cruel and conniving as Snow. In fact, she's a little more frightening, since she's supposed to be a "good guy". But she watches Katniss in the same way, and she treats her the same way as President Snow when he visited Katniss's house in the last book. She also clearly has her own goals in mind. Katniss is aware of the similarities from the get-go--she doesn't equate Coin with Snow until the near climax of the book, but she notices the similarities and necessities between the Rebellion and the Capitol's shows:
"What they want is for me to truly take on the role they designed for me. The symbol of the revolution. The Mockingjay. It isn't enough, what I've done in the past, defying the Capitol in the Games, providing a rallying point. I must now become the actual leader, the face, the voice, the embodiment of the revolution. The person who the districts--most of which are now openly at war with the Capitol--can count on to blaze the path to victory. I won't have to do it alone. They have a whole team of people to make me over, dress me, write my speeches, orchestrate my appearances--as if that doesn't sound horribly familiar--and all I have to do is play my part" (Collins 10-11).
"As a rebel, I thought I'd get to look more like myself. But it seems a televised rebel has her own standards to live up to" (Collins 60).
Okay, so I skip a lot. A lot of the beginning is Katniss recovering and the new life in the underground homes of District 13. Interesting, but not really worth my recounting, other than that life is very different in the new District. Everything is highly regulated, down to the food and daily tasks, which was obviously necessary in the District's early days of survival, and has been carried on because it clearly works. Katniss spends most of her time ignoring her schedule. Eventually she accepts that she must be the Mockingjay--it also gives her the chance to force President Coin to agree to some terms: for example, she saves her designing team, the other tributes, a few things for her family (she saves Prim's cat!), etc... So then they start filming this and that to get on the Capitol's television systems. Haymitch gathers a think-tank to try and figure out how to incite the most passion and fervour in Katniss that will scare the Capitol and inspire the rebels. This provides a two-three page summary of everything in the series that was emotionally wrenching: her volunteering for Prim in the Game of the first book, when she sand for Rue, when she kissed Peeta what could have been good-bye (well, that was Octavia), the berries, trying to help Mags in the last book... I only bring it up because as Katniss starts to flash back, it kind of forces the reader to flashback with real clarity, and yeah, I got a little emotional. (Not about the Peeta stuff, mostly when they brought up Rue and Mags.) Oh! And in the last book, to heighten dramatic appeal before the games, Katniss came up with the lie that she was pregnant with Peeta's baby (because remember, the angle since the first game was that they were together)--Haymitch covers this by saying that the child spontaneously aborted due to the trauma in the first games. (More specifically, an electric shock that Katniss endured.
Katniss also insists on fighting alongside the rebels as much as possible. She doesn't like just being the figurehead, which I can respect. Coin is incredulous: "'And if you're killed?' asks Coin. 'Make sure you get some footage. You can use that, anyway,' I answer" (Collins 76). This was kind of a poor idea to put in Coin's head, because towards the end of the book Coin sends Katniss on a mission that is supposed to kill her and make her be the martyr. (Though honestly Coin probably could have come up with that on her own, even if Katniss didn't plant the seed for it here... Coin gets pretty slimy by the end.)
Oh yes, Peeta was also captured by the Capitol. Caesar Flickerman continues to interview him, but... Ugh, I don't want to think he's a bad guy. He seems too goofy (in my head, I haven't seen the movie yet) and friendly to be a bad guy. Almost... A lot of the Capitol seems to be made up of bubble heads (hey, Scott Westerfield!), and that's kind of the feeling I get about him. He's sort of higher up on the food chain, but he's still basically just kind of there... But! President Snow is fattening him up and torturing him alternately to mess with Katniss, because he knows that she and the others in the District can see his broadcasts. He's using him to torment her, so eventually they do rescue him--but he has been brainwashed with the hallucinogens from the Tracker Jack's venom (modified yellow jackets). Eventually they work most of it out of his system, but I'm getting ahead of myself...
Anyways! As a mission of goodwill, Katniss visits the infirmary, but I don't think it's the one where her mother and Prim are working. They send her to inspire the hurt soldiers, to help her image, and to bring hope to all. Everyone gets excited to see her, she is being hugged, kissed, and adored by all. The touch makes her nervous at first, but she kind of... leaves her own body, or gets too wrapped up in her thoughts. What I noticed was Gale's word choice when he spoke to her after: "'I can't believe you let all those people touch you. I kept expecting you to make a break for the door'" (Collins 91). I think this is just me digging too deep--I wouldn't really go ahead and say that Katniss is a Christ figure, but there's a bit in the Bible where a poor, sick woman (what she was sick from differs depending on where you read it, Craig Thompson in Blankets says that she was "subject to bleeding", but other translations or retellings sometimes just say that she was very ill or what have you) touches Jesus briefly. The crowd is so thick that that is all she can manage. Anyways, a little bit of Jesus's power leaves him and goes into her and heals her, because her faith in him was so strong. Obviously Katniss isn't the divine, and again, it's a long shot to make that connection (I think), but it's the first thing that I though of. Anyways, the hospital is bombed moments later--which inspires Katniss to give a fury-fueled broadcast on the site, after attacking and taking down some bombers with Gale.
Oh yes, her speech--well it's really the end, directed at President Snow directly, that's the powerful part: "'Fire is catching!' I am shouting now, determined that he will not miss a word. 'And if we burn, you burn with us!'" (Collins 100).
"'It takes ten times as long to put yourself together as it does to fall apart'" (Collins 156).
So... Next note is on page 180, after they've gotten Peeta back. Like I said, he was brainwashed into hating Katniss and wanting to kill her with Tracker Jack venom. There's just a little entomology thing--instead of thinking the mutated bees are yellow jackets, they explain the name (though they admit that they're not sure) by saying that it comes from the "old English" word hijack. Just making a note of the phrase "old English". I still think the "75 years" of hunger games still started in like 2030, 2050... I think that is still acceptable...
Um... So as attacks get closer to the Capitol and the rebels gain more ground, you begin seeing more of the different characters. Peeta's out, of course, Katniss is kind of there, but caught up in it, President Coin gets nastier, people grow closer to Katniss... And Gale becomes more and more extreme. As in, he'll firebomb places that have citizens as well as enemies, or their imprisoned fighters. He doesn't care, the ends justify the means. So he gets very frightening. Now, of course there's the Peeta/Gale debate. I wasn't really into that part as much... But my roommate last year did this BS, "It's not about them, they represent the life she chooses to have, or how she chose to stage her rebellion". That's BS hardcore right there. It's also an insult to Katniss, I think, like she couldn't just go off on her own if she chose. And she can (okay, she doesn't. But she is strong enough to make her own decisions about everything, which she does through the entire book--when she is kowtowed into something at the very, very end, it actually seems really out of character). And Gale's harsh measures frighten her, because she sees that they're so close to President Snow's or Coin's measures. So... that's my rant. It's a little out of the blue, but the Team Peeta/Gale thing is really dumb, and this made me think of it. Deal with it. (Also that was SUCH a dumb way of putting it, ex-roommate.)
Oh, Katniss even has the concept of Panem et Circenses explained to her--I would not consider this too much, however, as this is a book meant for the YA audience. Probably your average 13-15 year old (this is me straight-up making up numbers right here) isn't that up on Roman history/concepts/culture/et cetera--though I'm disappointed in every YA reader who couldn't at least recognize names like Caesar. And Katniss obviously wasn't aware of the concept either, it explains the name (I didn't even put two and two together, though I got nearly every other Latin reference), and so on.
Skip ahead, and several teams are planning the final assault on the Capitol. (Sorry, it's been a few weeks since I updated, and I can't entirely remember what transpired, other than a lot of bombings...) President Coin puts Katniss on a team with Peeta, who has not fully recovered, and basically is planning on Peeta snapping, killing or mortally wounding her (if the assault does not), making her a martyr, and getting her out of the way. Spoiler alert; Katniss makes it, Peeta makes it, but most of the other team is killed, in absolutely horrible ways. Lizard-mutts appear and kill Finnick--it is the most horrifying death in the whole series. As he's climbing to follow Katniss and the mutt pulls him down and chew him in half. Made even more horrifying because he did marry the girl he loved right before, and I think they know that she's pregnant... I literally could not believe that she'd do that. I read the passage over about five times.
Next note: every soldier (except Peeta) has poison-in-a-pill called Nightlock. The deadly nightshade/hemlock. That is all.
I... that's my last note before we get to the aftermath of this final assault. Snow is captured, hundreds are killed, Katniss is firebombed into a naked, peeling mess, and in the cruelest irony of the whole series--Prim is killed, and Katniss sees her death. All of this started out of a desire to save/protect her little sister, and at the climax, she is killed. That was another thing I could not believe.
And, of course the irony: Katniss really did become the girl who was on fire...
Anyways, when Katniss recovers, she gets the final ceremonial arrow: the last arrow of war, intended to kill the captured President Snow. The climax is when she aims the arrow at Snow, already beaten and nearly dead, hating him--
--and she shoots Coin, also in the room, twice as cruel as Snow. Coin is instantly killed, and Snow chokes on his own blood laughing. Plutarch becomes temporary head.
Anyways... The most unbelievable part of this whole series is the epilogue. Katniss realizes that she doesn't need Gale's "fire, kindled with rage and hatred" (Collins 388). Peeta has recovered, and is sweet and gentle. So they end up together. Good. That doesn't really bother me, didn't really care about the romantic subplot (other than Finnick's), so good. I like the end. But the epilogue! Katniss has had two children at Peeta's insistence, and it took "five, ten, fifteen years" (Collins 389) to convince her. I don't care how long it took. Katniss having kids... No matter what... Just seems horribly out of character, terribly so. She never even refers to either child by name, which also seems to signal that she doesn't really like them/isn't that attached to them, whatever. I would have been happier without the epilogue, probably. It just threw a monkey wrench in, right at the very end...
MLA Citation Information: Collins, Suzanne. Mockingjay. Scholastic Press: United States of America, 2010.
Hey, remember that time I finished writing this in September and just never typed up the works cited until now? Oops.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Books To Classic Movies: The Thing and Psycho
You know these movies, I'm sure. Psycho is a classic by the great Alfred Hitchcock, and they just released a prequel to The Thing so I'm sure you've at least heard of it. But The Thing I'm talking about is John Carpenter's hit from the eighties. (The first version came out in the fifties and I've never seen it, but in the special features for the DVD it's discussed and there are some stills and such from it.) Also, strangely enough, these two DVDs were the last I ever rented from the local Hollywood Video before it went out of business, at the same time--I remember because my dad is really weirdly cheap, so it was a big deal that he was willing to let me take out two DVDs at once.
Anyways, I've decided to do the stories in chronological order. Obviously there will be spoilers for both films, but I'd be surprised if you didn't know them already--especially with Psycho; everything in that movie has become so... is canonized the word? Lionized? Well, I can't think of the word, but it's had an amazing impact on horror films, thriller films... I mean, it's Alfred Hitchcock, so...
I tried reading the first few, and gave up about halfway through the second story in the collection, "Twilight". In it, a man from a distant and kind of cruddy future whose enchantments are crumbling, goes back in time to 1932-ish, and converses with a regular man, who relates the story to us. Why did I give up? Here: "'"The Moon was just setting now, and as it set, the rosy-silver glow waned and the music grew stronger. It came from everywhere and from nowhere... I do not know how such music could be written. Savages make music too simple to be beautiful, but it is stirring. Semisavages write music beautifully simple, and simply beautiful. Your Negro music was your best. They knew music when they heard it and they sang it as they felt it. Semicivilized peoples write great music. They are proud of their music, and make sure it is known for great music. They make it so great it is top-heavy"'" (Campbell 29). Ohhh.
You see where I'm coming from now? The stories weren't fantastic to begin with, and at that point I was kind of too uncomfortable to continue. (Also this implies that there are no black people in the future, or any other non-white races, so, uh, yeaaah...)
But, I had to read "Who Are You?"!
So, the premise is that there is a research team in Antarctica. In the movie (major spoilers this is your last warning!), the Thing delivers itself to them--it was dug up by a Norwegian team of researchers and presumably kills them all off, one by one, except for one or two last crazed men (one day I'll watch that prequel...)--these last survivors are determined to murder it. The Thing, seeking safety, takes the form of a dog (that's right! It absorbs creatures so it can take on their shape!) and tries to run away. The Norwegians try to shoot it (they are baaaad shots), but it makes it onto the American camp. The men, unaware that the dog is a monster (uh... I... I can't find a good picture of the dog monster? What!?) because it looks and acts like a completely normal dog, protect it, try to reason with the man--but he accidentally blows himself up. (Fun fact! If you speak Norwegian, the whole twist in the movie is spoiled by the man shouting in his language. he says something along the lines of "That's not dog, that's just a thing imitating a dog!")
In the book, the American team finds him and other than that, it's basically the same... Basically. Well, people get absorbed, the hot needle test is in there, and Wilford Brimley builds a spaceship. In other respects it's real different.
The beginning describes the icy tundra, and how dangerous and awful and unforgiving it is: "It was easy for man--or thing--to get lost in ten paces" (Campbell 294). Ohh, I see what you did there! And yes... I know I'm being unfair, and I've had the benefit of seeing the films and them existing and it not being 1938... But still. It seems so campy and obvious. Was that italicization necessary? That seems like he's overdoing it.
So it basically all starts when they discover it, and explain science things that I do not understand at all, and probably aren't considered sound anymore (there's a whole process they go through where they combine dog blood and human blood to see who's been taken over which definitely is not sound that has thankfully been done away with in the Carpenter film).
So in the film, we never see the monster in its "true" form. There are implications--the dog monster grows big scary clawed Hulks hands at one point--but nothing we really see. Actually seeing the monster in this is, therefore, kind of disappointing, though I'm sure people in the thirties cried themselves to sleep at night... It's something like seven feet tall, basic humanoid, scaly, blue tentacles instead of hair, three red glowing eyes, and probably big fangs or something. So I can see how it inspired the fifties film--Carpenter's comment on the original Thing movie (The Thing From Another Planet) was that it was too much like a big Frankenstein monster, it just kind of stalked around, it didn't really do anything out of the ordinary. Clearly this monster would do a lot of that too... (Does that make sense? That I can see it inspiring the fifties film, but not the eighties one? I'm incredibly impressed with Carpenter's version of it).
So yeah. A few scientist guys want to thaw it out and study it. Ultimately they get their way, despite there being an equal number of men who rightfully think that that's a bad idea. It's even frozen with a snarl! Some man offers that it is just because they don't understand that culture--that that snarl could be that race's version of a look of sorrow, or helplessness. Another man rejoins with something like, "If that's that race's look of resignation, I don't want to see it when it's mad". Listen, people recognize facial patterns for a reason. You wouldn't approach a snarling dog, would you? Or a hissing cat? (Jonesy?) No? THEN DO NOT THAW AN ALIEN MONSTER OUT.
So Connant is on watch the night the Thing thaws completely: they debated on holding the Thing and keeping it in deep freeze till they go back to civilization, so I guess it's good that they didn't, but... Man, one guy--I assume it was MacReady--even expresses his desire to burn it with a flamethrower, but no, he's stopped. Anyways, Connant is assigned to watch it...
"Connant picked up the pressure lamp and returned to his chair. He sat down, staring at the pages of mathematics before him. The clucking of the counter was strangely less disturbing, the rustle of the coals in the stove no longer distracting. The creak of the floorboards behind him didn't interrupt his thoughts as he went about his weekly report in an automatic manner, filling in columns of data and making brief, summarizing notes. The creak of the floorboards sounded nearer" (Campbell 308). (Who Are You? by The Who just came up on my shuffle...) But yeah. Again, this is the moment where I have the advantage of having seen the film approximately 9867534452 times. When Connant shows up later, apparently unchanged and undamaged, readers were probably utterly confused. When they revealed he had been assimilated later in the story, I was just kind of like, well, duh. I was actually confused for a while, since he obviously wasn't doing anything suspicious.
(Also he refers to a Geiger counter alternately as a Geiger counter and a cosmic-ray counter? This was the main thing that bothered me about the story. That is so 1950's bad... Unless if that really is some old-timey name for a Geiger counter...?)
"'Blair's blasted potential life developed a hell of a lot of potential and walked out on us'" (Campbell 308).
And, like I said, Connant was the first assimilated. The Thing-Blair says that it's a wonder that the creature didn't eat him--Blair: "'Maybe it di--er--uh--we'll have to find it'" (Campbell 309). Ughhhh, it's clumsy, but that's not its fault...
What's an interesting thing I noticed was that the dogs in the book, unlike in the movie, attack the Thing on site--they can't abide its existence. Of course that made me think of the dogs in the Lovecraft novella "At the Mountains of Madness". They attack all artifacts of the Old Ones on sight and have to be harshly restrained--not to mention that both stories take place in the same icy wasteland. That was published in 1936, so it very well could have influenced Campbell, but who knows?
I don't really have much more... Just scenes that are similar. There's a less-gross dogmonster, Wilford Brimley (Blair) is locked in a shed for a week after becoming possessed by the creature and building a sort of ship/weapon. The blood scene is the same. Carpenter supposedly was enthralled by this scene, but I don't remember exactly what he said about it--something along the lines of literally sitting on the edge of his seat, or something... (The blood scene, where he dips a hot needle in blood samples to see who is an alien--because the alien blood would try to escape--is definitely the bed in the novella. The last thing that really stood out was during one such test, after Connant was revealed: "Garry spoke in a low, bitter voice. 'Connant was one of the finest men we had here--and five minutes ago I'd have sworn he was a man. Those damnable things are more than imitation.' Garry shuddered and sat back in his bunk. And thirty seconds later, Garry's blood shrank from the hot platinum wire, and struggled to escape the tube, struggling as frantically as a suddenly feral, red-eyed, dissolving imitation of Garry struggled to dodge the snake-tongue weapon Barclay advanced at him, white-faced and sweating. The Thing in the test tube screamed with a tiny, tinny voice as MacReady dropped it into the glowing coal of the gallery stove" (Campbell 347).
So, the story ends with the beast being defeated, more of a closed ending than the movie--Carpenter actually revealed that he wanted to make some end twist where MacReady is a Thing too (possibly the whole time, or possibly just infected in that final fight, it wasn't specified), but couldn't think of a good way to do it. This story is pretty readable, though there are some opaque psuedo-scientific sections that are needlessly complex and get boring. It also is kind of hard to follow, what with there being so many characters and with nothing to mark more than a few of them. If I hadn't seen the movie I would have liked it more, though if I hadn't seen the movie, I probably would have just put the book down forever at "Twilight". It exists well on its own, but I think Carpenter did improve on it in a huge way that I think could be considered visionary. His idea of the Thing is really cool, adds tension, and adds some disgustingly awesome scenes (emphasis on disgusting)... Now... To a less extraterrestrial, let's get to our Alfred Hitchcock classic in this double feature...
Now, if you've seen the movie, you know the book. It's basically the same--there are a few changes, the relationship with the boyfriend isn't so... raunchy? Well, to an early sixties person, you know. The private investigator is a 1940's fast-talking tough guy--my least favourite characters to read. Last summer I tried to read some forties thrillers/mysteries, and that persona is simply unbearable for me. The main difference is that this book is more from Norman's point of view--we follow our protagonist when she takes the money, of course, and when she is in the shower, and that sort of thing... But we see a lot of the inside of Norman's head, too. We understand his compulsions, his attraction/hate for our showering soon-to-be victim, weird mental patterns and some understanding of why he acted the way he did... He is actually fairly intelligent (and is interested in "obscene" subject matters--cannibal tribe culture, psychology, stuff that Mother would not approve of...), and even tries to get Mother (of course no word on whether she was alive or dead at that point) to read about the Oedipus complex. So it was kind of strange to see that in a weird way, he almost sort of knew what was going on...
Oh, one big change is that Norman Bates is kind of gross. Anthony Perkins--kind of handsome. A little weird looking, but okay, kind of handsome. Polite--yeah, he says a few off things that would put you off, but you would still think of him as okay-looking. The book's Norman Bates? Chubby going on fat, coke bottle glasses, kind of gross.
Actually, Norman is also even made out to be a sympathetic character, even--my first note was that of surprise, when Norman shows that he is aware of the fact that his relationship with his mother isn't quite right: "'If you were half a man, you you'd have gone your own way.' He wanted to shout out at her that she was wrong, but he couldn't. Because the things she was saying were the things he had told himself, over and over again, all through the years. It was true. She'd always laid down the law to him, but that didn't mean he always had to obey. Mothers sometimes are overly possessive, but not all children allow themselves to be possessed. There had been other widows, other only sons, and not all of them became enmeshed in this sort of relationship. It was really his fault as much as hers. Because he didn't have any gumption" (Bloch 14). Keep in mind that this book existed before the movie, before the split personality trope existed (or at least existed well, Robert Louis Stevenson)--no-one knew the twist, though, is my point. So Norman starts out looking like a pathetic, henpecked figure who is, yeah, kind of gross.
Oh--his relationship with his mother--I mean the real one, not the crazy in-the-cellar-and-in-your-head one is kind of interesting too. The main backstory is the same, father ran off (possibly he was said to have died in the movie), the mother started seeing a new guy, etc, is all true--even the mother and the boyfriend's "suicide pact" (that's what the local sheriff calls it in the book, though I think it's something different in the movie). The movie implies sexual abuse of some sort, though I didn't catch any of that in the book. The closest I found was that one time as a child, Norman was enjoying the look of himself naked in the mirror (implying masturbation, homosexual urges?). His mother came in, saw him, and beat him senseless (aiming for his head, of course) with a silver hairbrush--hence why he needs such thick glasses. That was interesting, to have such incidents in Norman's past life to be looked at. He also refers to woman as bitches and "all those" bitches--though he recalls no incident where women taunted him. That could be frustration at his impotence, his split personality coming out, or anger as the result of some sort of suppression of homosexuality, if we can rightfully take that from the mirror scene.
So skip to Mary's (oh, that's her name?) arrival at the Bates motel. He's awkward around her, of course--his dialogue is mostly the same, but being that this is just written, it can never be nearly as off-putting as Anthony Perkins manages to make it. Anyways. The only reason I marked this is that their meeting takes place in the parlour of the Bates' house, rather than the office of the motel. She notes in amazement how the room appears to be left completely alone--that is, not updated--for the last sixty, seventy years. She notes that it looks like it was "straight out of the Gay Nineties" (Bloch 39). A statement which makes sense--but jars me all the same. When I think nineties, of course I think of the decade I was born in and all that goes with that; of course she'd only be thinking of 1890, though, it's only 1959! That sort of thing weirds me out, though. How, for example, if someone refers to the "roaring twenties", you think of, you know, 1920's, The Great Gatsby, all of that. But by 2040, the twenties will be 2020, still, at the time of this writing, eight years away! Does that make anyone else feel strange? Just me? Ah, well...
"Maybe Mother should be put away. It was getting so he couldn't handle her alone any more. Getting so he couldn't handle himself, either. What had Mother used to say about handling himself? It was a sin. You could burn in hell" (Bloch 55). "Handling himself"--that means exactly what you think it means. Also, did you notice how he said he could hardly handle Mother anymore and then himself, in nearly the same breath?
Ah yes, alone in his room that night, Norman regrets snapping at Mary in defense of his mother, and goes very quickly from feeling as though he would have a real friend in her and admiring her sweetness, and even imagining he could love her and be in a relationship with her, to becoming upset that by the next morning she'd probably be gone from his life forever, and even if she wasn't, she'd reject his romantic advances and, worst of all, mock him. At this point he starts calling her a bitch, and gets frustrated at himself for being impotent and lacking the bravery required to proposition to her and sleep with her. I found that kind of interesting, as it seems hard to see the movie's Bates as ever having sex, or even knowing what it is... If that makes sense. Anyways, this weirdly aggressive thought pattern occurs into the shower scene (when he watches her) until he "passes out". The line of thought ends when he wakes up, and once he finds the body, he is no longer thinking in such a strangely confrontational way.
The scene where the car momentarily stops as it sinks into the swamp is even in the book. Props to Alfred Hitchcock for making it so perfectly tense!
The book also discusses Norman disposing of the body (in the trunk of the car). Strangely enough, I never wondered what he did with it in the movie. So--yeah, I thought that bit was a little gruesome.
Um... Yeah, my next note doesn't come until Norman moves Mother down to the fruit cellar. Instead of saying her little line about him putting her down there because she was a fruitcake (or something along those lines) she just accuses him of not loving her anymore, trying to imprison her, etc. Norman assures her that he does love her, because if he didn't, she would just be in the state hospital for the criminally insane. Mother responds: "'Yes, Norman, I suppose you're right. That's where I'd probably be. But I wouldn't be there alone'" (Bloch 147). Bloch is good!
So the sister goes to investigate, and she books a room at the motel (the same room!) with her now-deceased sister's boyfriend. Lila defiantly announcing that she is going to the motel: "...the sharp shadow line slashed across her neck. For a moment, it looked as though somebody had just cut off Lila's head..." (Bloch 170). That one... Not so clever, Bloch. Oh, and did I mention that unlike in the movie, where Mary is merely stabbed to death in the shower, Mary's head is actually cut off! Yikes... And a little unrealistic, even if you've got a really good knife.
Oh, and things get weird when the sister and the boyfriend pull in. Norman starts freaking out, so he starts drinking to calm himself down. After two drinks, the car pulls in, and things get really weird: "[The car] had nothing to distinguish it from any other car, no out-of-state license or anything like that, but Norman knew right away that they were here. When you're a psychic sensitive, you can feel the vibrations" (Bloch 175). I--what!? Where did that come from?
"'Oh yes, I brought Mother back home with me. That was the exciting part, you see--going out to the cemetery at night and digging up the grave... At first I thought she really was dead. But she wasn't, of course. She couldn't be. Or else she wouldn't have been able to communicate with me while I was in the hospital all that while. It was only a trance state, really; what we call suspended animation. I knew how to revive here. There are ways, you know, even if some folks call it magic. Magic--that's just a label, you know. Completely meaningless. It wasn't so very long ago that people were saying that electricity was magic. Actually, it's a force, a force which can be harnessed if you know the secret. Life is a force too, a vital force. And like electricity, you can turn it off and on, off and on. I'd turned it off, and I knew how to turn it on again'" (Bloch 190-191). I, uh, what? No thank you Norman Bates, I no longer want this from your point of view, this is getting really weird...
Oh, one more difference is that Norman's insanity doesn't completely come from being to possessive of his Mother, and vice versa. At least not while she was alive. What set him off in the book, in what is basically the same wrap-up scene that basically explains his psychosis at the end of the movie, is that he walks in on his mother and her boyfriend having sex. Because it was the thirties and sex wasn't real without rings on fingers, I guess they covered up and quickly announced that it was okay because they were getting married. Norman later poisoned them both. (Hey, isn't that what sets the kid off in the Halloween movies too? Or something? The original Halloween is just so damn boring...) Well, whatever. The book wraps up in almost the exact same way, with the climax, the psychoanalysts explaining everything--even the final words from Mrs Bates in the film mirror the last few sentences of the book: "She sat there for quite a long time, and then a fly came buzzing through the bars. It lighted on her hand. If she wanted to, she could reach out and swat the fly. But she didn't swat it. She didn't swat it, and she hoped they were watching, because that proved what sort of person she really was. Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly..." (Bloch 223).
Compare that to the film: "It's sad, when a mother has to speak the words that condemn her own son. But I couldn't allow them to believe that I would commit murder. They'll put him away now, as I should have years ago. He was always bad, and in the end he intended to tell them I killed those girls and that man... as if I could do anything but just sit and stare, like one of his stuffed birds. They know I can't move a finger, and I won't. I'll just sit here and be quiet, just in case they do... suspect me. They're probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am. I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching... they'll see. They'll see and they'll know, and they'll say, "Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly..." (Source)
So, wrap-up? Both books were good. Their main faults were in me, in that I had seen both films before even realizing either was originally a book. Campbell's story is a little dated, and drags at times, but I'm sure the audiences in the thirties were practically going insane. It's readable, and it's not necessary at all to the movie, but it doesn't hurt any. If you really like the movie, go ahead, if the movie wasn't your thing, it's not worth it. As for Psycho, yeah, I prefer the movie, but again, I saw that first. Plus, you've have Anthony Perkins delivering in an amazing performance, Alfred Hitchcock, the music, all those iconic scenes... The movie builds something that words on a page simply cannot. It really is a classic, and has not aged like some other Hitchcock films (I like The Birds, but yeah, it doesn't quite hold up that well). If you haven't seen it yet, go NOW. I command it! Even if that isn't your movie genre, you're going to be impressed. And if parts of this post seemed confusing, it is because I didn't want to go out and say directly what the twist was... Though, again, Psycho is a classic and I would honestly be surprised if you didn't know all the twists and tricks. Even if you've never seen it before, there are definitely elements you've seen ripped off in tons of other films/comic books/etc.
As for The Thing, it's a little gorier. It's more of an Alien movie, but grosser. Really, I made Alex watch it, and it looked like he was going to throw up a few times. It is pretty nasty. But if you rent/buy it and start getting grossed out, just watch the claymation test run in the special features. Oh, and The Thing is really long. I tend to get a little antsy towards the end. But I like it! It is good, and it's considered one of Carpenter's best films. So... That's cool. Also a detached head grows spider legs and scuttles away! (I had to add that... Reading about that detail was what made me want to watch the movie in the first place...)
MLA Citation Information: Bloch, Robert. Psycho. TOR: New York, 1959.
Campbell, John W. The Best of John W. Campbell. Ballantine Books: New York, 1976. (290-353).*
*I don't know if citing page numbers is right, or if I should have somehow worked the novella title into there, but those are the pages Who Goes There? is on, in any case...
Anyways, I've decided to do the stories in chronological order. Obviously there will be spoilers for both films, but I'd be surprised if you didn't know them already--especially with Psycho; everything in that movie has become so... is canonized the word? Lionized? Well, I can't think of the word, but it's had an amazing impact on horror films, thriller films... I mean, it's Alfred Hitchcock, so...
The Thing
So The Thing started life as a novella called "Who Goes There?", published in 1938, written by John W Campbell. It's in a "best of" book collection I found--I really tried to read the other stories, I did, but they're so painfully dated. All of these stories except for one was written between 1932 and 1938--so the future is things like "Computers will only be the size of one room in your house! Women will have jobs! Robots!" (pronounced "robutts", of course). Also, he's uncomfortably religious, and I can't figure out if he's racist, or if it was still considered okay to say negro in the thirties. I tried reading the first few, and gave up about halfway through the second story in the collection, "Twilight". In it, a man from a distant and kind of cruddy future whose enchantments are crumbling, goes back in time to 1932-ish, and converses with a regular man, who relates the story to us. Why did I give up? Here: "'"The Moon was just setting now, and as it set, the rosy-silver glow waned and the music grew stronger. It came from everywhere and from nowhere... I do not know how such music could be written. Savages make music too simple to be beautiful, but it is stirring. Semisavages write music beautifully simple, and simply beautiful. Your Negro music was your best. They knew music when they heard it and they sang it as they felt it. Semicivilized peoples write great music. They are proud of their music, and make sure it is known for great music. They make it so great it is top-heavy"'" (Campbell 29). Ohhh.
You see where I'm coming from now? The stories weren't fantastic to begin with, and at that point I was kind of too uncomfortable to continue. (Also this implies that there are no black people in the future, or any other non-white races, so, uh, yeaaah...)
But, I had to read "Who Are You?"!
So, the premise is that there is a research team in Antarctica. In the movie (major spoilers this is your last warning!), the Thing delivers itself to them--it was dug up by a Norwegian team of researchers and presumably kills them all off, one by one, except for one or two last crazed men (one day I'll watch that prequel...)--these last survivors are determined to murder it. The Thing, seeking safety, takes the form of a dog (that's right! It absorbs creatures so it can take on their shape!) and tries to run away. The Norwegians try to shoot it (they are baaaad shots), but it makes it onto the American camp. The men, unaware that the dog is a monster (uh... I... I can't find a good picture of the dog monster? What!?) because it looks and acts like a completely normal dog, protect it, try to reason with the man--but he accidentally blows himself up. (Fun fact! If you speak Norwegian, the whole twist in the movie is spoiled by the man shouting in his language. he says something along the lines of "That's not dog, that's just a thing imitating a dog!")
In the book, the American team finds him and other than that, it's basically the same... Basically. Well, people get absorbed, the hot needle test is in there, and Wilford Brimley builds a spaceship. In other respects it's real different.
The beginning describes the icy tundra, and how dangerous and awful and unforgiving it is: "It was easy for man--or thing--to get lost in ten paces" (Campbell 294). Ohh, I see what you did there! And yes... I know I'm being unfair, and I've had the benefit of seeing the films and them existing and it not being 1938... But still. It seems so campy and obvious. Was that italicization necessary? That seems like he's overdoing it.
So it basically all starts when they discover it, and explain science things that I do not understand at all, and probably aren't considered sound anymore (there's a whole process they go through where they combine dog blood and human blood to see who's been taken over which definitely is not sound that has thankfully been done away with in the Carpenter film).
So in the film, we never see the monster in its "true" form. There are implications--the dog monster grows big scary clawed Hulks hands at one point--but nothing we really see. Actually seeing the monster in this is, therefore, kind of disappointing, though I'm sure people in the thirties cried themselves to sleep at night... It's something like seven feet tall, basic humanoid, scaly, blue tentacles instead of hair, three red glowing eyes, and probably big fangs or something. So I can see how it inspired the fifties film--Carpenter's comment on the original Thing movie (The Thing From Another Planet) was that it was too much like a big Frankenstein monster, it just kind of stalked around, it didn't really do anything out of the ordinary. Clearly this monster would do a lot of that too... (Does that make sense? That I can see it inspiring the fifties film, but not the eighties one? I'm incredibly impressed with Carpenter's version of it).
So yeah. A few scientist guys want to thaw it out and study it. Ultimately they get their way, despite there being an equal number of men who rightfully think that that's a bad idea. It's even frozen with a snarl! Some man offers that it is just because they don't understand that culture--that that snarl could be that race's version of a look of sorrow, or helplessness. Another man rejoins with something like, "If that's that race's look of resignation, I don't want to see it when it's mad". Listen, people recognize facial patterns for a reason. You wouldn't approach a snarling dog, would you? Or a hissing cat? (Jonesy?) No? THEN DO NOT THAW AN ALIEN MONSTER OUT.
So Connant is on watch the night the Thing thaws completely: they debated on holding the Thing and keeping it in deep freeze till they go back to civilization, so I guess it's good that they didn't, but... Man, one guy--I assume it was MacReady--even expresses his desire to burn it with a flamethrower, but no, he's stopped. Anyways, Connant is assigned to watch it...
"Connant picked up the pressure lamp and returned to his chair. He sat down, staring at the pages of mathematics before him. The clucking of the counter was strangely less disturbing, the rustle of the coals in the stove no longer distracting. The creak of the floorboards behind him didn't interrupt his thoughts as he went about his weekly report in an automatic manner, filling in columns of data and making brief, summarizing notes. The creak of the floorboards sounded nearer" (Campbell 308). (Who Are You? by The Who just came up on my shuffle...) But yeah. Again, this is the moment where I have the advantage of having seen the film approximately 9867534452 times. When Connant shows up later, apparently unchanged and undamaged, readers were probably utterly confused. When they revealed he had been assimilated later in the story, I was just kind of like, well, duh. I was actually confused for a while, since he obviously wasn't doing anything suspicious.
(Also he refers to a Geiger counter alternately as a Geiger counter and a cosmic-ray counter? This was the main thing that bothered me about the story. That is so 1950's bad... Unless if that really is some old-timey name for a Geiger counter...?)
"'Blair's blasted potential life developed a hell of a lot of potential and walked out on us'" (Campbell 308).
And, like I said, Connant was the first assimilated. The Thing-Blair says that it's a wonder that the creature didn't eat him--Blair: "'Maybe it di--er--uh--we'll have to find it'" (Campbell 309). Ughhhh, it's clumsy, but that's not its fault...
What's an interesting thing I noticed was that the dogs in the book, unlike in the movie, attack the Thing on site--they can't abide its existence. Of course that made me think of the dogs in the Lovecraft novella "At the Mountains of Madness". They attack all artifacts of the Old Ones on sight and have to be harshly restrained--not to mention that both stories take place in the same icy wasteland. That was published in 1936, so it very well could have influenced Campbell, but who knows?
I don't really have much more... Just scenes that are similar. There's a less-gross dogmonster, Wilford Brimley (Blair) is locked in a shed for a week after becoming possessed by the creature and building a sort of ship/weapon. The blood scene is the same. Carpenter supposedly was enthralled by this scene, but I don't remember exactly what he said about it--something along the lines of literally sitting on the edge of his seat, or something... (The blood scene, where he dips a hot needle in blood samples to see who is an alien--because the alien blood would try to escape--is definitely the bed in the novella. The last thing that really stood out was during one such test, after Connant was revealed: "Garry spoke in a low, bitter voice. 'Connant was one of the finest men we had here--and five minutes ago I'd have sworn he was a man. Those damnable things are more than imitation.' Garry shuddered and sat back in his bunk. And thirty seconds later, Garry's blood shrank from the hot platinum wire, and struggled to escape the tube, struggling as frantically as a suddenly feral, red-eyed, dissolving imitation of Garry struggled to dodge the snake-tongue weapon Barclay advanced at him, white-faced and sweating. The Thing in the test tube screamed with a tiny, tinny voice as MacReady dropped it into the glowing coal of the gallery stove" (Campbell 347).
So, the story ends with the beast being defeated, more of a closed ending than the movie--Carpenter actually revealed that he wanted to make some end twist where MacReady is a Thing too (possibly the whole time, or possibly just infected in that final fight, it wasn't specified), but couldn't think of a good way to do it. This story is pretty readable, though there are some opaque psuedo-scientific sections that are needlessly complex and get boring. It also is kind of hard to follow, what with there being so many characters and with nothing to mark more than a few of them. If I hadn't seen the movie I would have liked it more, though if I hadn't seen the movie, I probably would have just put the book down forever at "Twilight". It exists well on its own, but I think Carpenter did improve on it in a huge way that I think could be considered visionary. His idea of the Thing is really cool, adds tension, and adds some disgustingly awesome scenes (emphasis on disgusting)... Now... To a less extraterrestrial, let's get to our Alfred Hitchcock classic in this double feature...
Psycho
Like I said above, even if you've never seen this movie, you probably know about the famous shower scene, and maybe even the twist with Norman Bates. I will begrudgingly admit that it's more likely that you'll know such tropes regarding this movie than The Thing. As an example of its proliferation in pop culture... There's a Far Side comic about it! (This would be more relevant if it was 1995, but cut me some slack.) Okay... Hmm... Fine, there's an episode of Dexter's Lab that references it (I believe it's the one where Dexter's mom can't find her gloves, but it turns out that the family got her a nice new pair for her birthday and had thrown out the old pair. It's at the very end of the episode). This started as a book--with around seven very bad sequels... Three of them movies, one failed TV series (really!), and two other books by Robert Bloch himself (the author). There was also a pretty crappy remake with--get ready for it--Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates. No. Thank. You. Ever. Now, if you've seen the movie, you know the book. It's basically the same--there are a few changes, the relationship with the boyfriend isn't so... raunchy? Well, to an early sixties person, you know. The private investigator is a 1940's fast-talking tough guy--my least favourite characters to read. Last summer I tried to read some forties thrillers/mysteries, and that persona is simply unbearable for me. The main difference is that this book is more from Norman's point of view--we follow our protagonist when she takes the money, of course, and when she is in the shower, and that sort of thing... But we see a lot of the inside of Norman's head, too. We understand his compulsions, his attraction/hate for our showering soon-to-be victim, weird mental patterns and some understanding of why he acted the way he did... He is actually fairly intelligent (and is interested in "obscene" subject matters--cannibal tribe culture, psychology, stuff that Mother would not approve of...), and even tries to get Mother (of course no word on whether she was alive or dead at that point) to read about the Oedipus complex. So it was kind of strange to see that in a weird way, he almost sort of knew what was going on...
Oh, one big change is that Norman Bates is kind of gross. Anthony Perkins--kind of handsome. A little weird looking, but okay, kind of handsome. Polite--yeah, he says a few off things that would put you off, but you would still think of him as okay-looking. The book's Norman Bates? Chubby going on fat, coke bottle glasses, kind of gross.
Actually, Norman is also even made out to be a sympathetic character, even--my first note was that of surprise, when Norman shows that he is aware of the fact that his relationship with his mother isn't quite right: "'If you were half a man, you you'd have gone your own way.' He wanted to shout out at her that she was wrong, but he couldn't. Because the things she was saying were the things he had told himself, over and over again, all through the years. It was true. She'd always laid down the law to him, but that didn't mean he always had to obey. Mothers sometimes are overly possessive, but not all children allow themselves to be possessed. There had been other widows, other only sons, and not all of them became enmeshed in this sort of relationship. It was really his fault as much as hers. Because he didn't have any gumption" (Bloch 14). Keep in mind that this book existed before the movie, before the split personality trope existed (or at least existed well, Robert Louis Stevenson)--no-one knew the twist, though, is my point. So Norman starts out looking like a pathetic, henpecked figure who is, yeah, kind of gross.
Oh--his relationship with his mother--I mean the real one, not the crazy in-the-cellar-and-in-your-head one is kind of interesting too. The main backstory is the same, father ran off (possibly he was said to have died in the movie), the mother started seeing a new guy, etc, is all true--even the mother and the boyfriend's "suicide pact" (that's what the local sheriff calls it in the book, though I think it's something different in the movie). The movie implies sexual abuse of some sort, though I didn't catch any of that in the book. The closest I found was that one time as a child, Norman was enjoying the look of himself naked in the mirror (implying masturbation, homosexual urges?). His mother came in, saw him, and beat him senseless (aiming for his head, of course) with a silver hairbrush--hence why he needs such thick glasses. That was interesting, to have such incidents in Norman's past life to be looked at. He also refers to woman as bitches and "all those" bitches--though he recalls no incident where women taunted him. That could be frustration at his impotence, his split personality coming out, or anger as the result of some sort of suppression of homosexuality, if we can rightfully take that from the mirror scene.
So skip to Mary's (oh, that's her name?) arrival at the Bates motel. He's awkward around her, of course--his dialogue is mostly the same, but being that this is just written, it can never be nearly as off-putting as Anthony Perkins manages to make it. Anyways. The only reason I marked this is that their meeting takes place in the parlour of the Bates' house, rather than the office of the motel. She notes in amazement how the room appears to be left completely alone--that is, not updated--for the last sixty, seventy years. She notes that it looks like it was "straight out of the Gay Nineties" (Bloch 39). A statement which makes sense--but jars me all the same. When I think nineties, of course I think of the decade I was born in and all that goes with that; of course she'd only be thinking of 1890, though, it's only 1959! That sort of thing weirds me out, though. How, for example, if someone refers to the "roaring twenties", you think of, you know, 1920's, The Great Gatsby, all of that. But by 2040, the twenties will be 2020, still, at the time of this writing, eight years away! Does that make anyone else feel strange? Just me? Ah, well...
"Maybe Mother should be put away. It was getting so he couldn't handle her alone any more. Getting so he couldn't handle himself, either. What had Mother used to say about handling himself? It was a sin. You could burn in hell" (Bloch 55). "Handling himself"--that means exactly what you think it means. Also, did you notice how he said he could hardly handle Mother anymore and then himself, in nearly the same breath?
Ah yes, alone in his room that night, Norman regrets snapping at Mary in defense of his mother, and goes very quickly from feeling as though he would have a real friend in her and admiring her sweetness, and even imagining he could love her and be in a relationship with her, to becoming upset that by the next morning she'd probably be gone from his life forever, and even if she wasn't, she'd reject his romantic advances and, worst of all, mock him. At this point he starts calling her a bitch, and gets frustrated at himself for being impotent and lacking the bravery required to proposition to her and sleep with her. I found that kind of interesting, as it seems hard to see the movie's Bates as ever having sex, or even knowing what it is... If that makes sense. Anyways, this weirdly aggressive thought pattern occurs into the shower scene (when he watches her) until he "passes out". The line of thought ends when he wakes up, and once he finds the body, he is no longer thinking in such a strangely confrontational way.
The scene where the car momentarily stops as it sinks into the swamp is even in the book. Props to Alfred Hitchcock for making it so perfectly tense!
The book also discusses Norman disposing of the body (in the trunk of the car). Strangely enough, I never wondered what he did with it in the movie. So--yeah, I thought that bit was a little gruesome.
Um... Yeah, my next note doesn't come until Norman moves Mother down to the fruit cellar. Instead of saying her little line about him putting her down there because she was a fruitcake (or something along those lines) she just accuses him of not loving her anymore, trying to imprison her, etc. Norman assures her that he does love her, because if he didn't, she would just be in the state hospital for the criminally insane. Mother responds: "'Yes, Norman, I suppose you're right. That's where I'd probably be. But I wouldn't be there alone'" (Bloch 147). Bloch is good!
So the sister goes to investigate, and she books a room at the motel (the same room!) with her now-deceased sister's boyfriend. Lila defiantly announcing that she is going to the motel: "...the sharp shadow line slashed across her neck. For a moment, it looked as though somebody had just cut off Lila's head..." (Bloch 170). That one... Not so clever, Bloch. Oh, and did I mention that unlike in the movie, where Mary is merely stabbed to death in the shower, Mary's head is actually cut off! Yikes... And a little unrealistic, even if you've got a really good knife.
Oh, and things get weird when the sister and the boyfriend pull in. Norman starts freaking out, so he starts drinking to calm himself down. After two drinks, the car pulls in, and things get really weird: "[The car] had nothing to distinguish it from any other car, no out-of-state license or anything like that, but Norman knew right away that they were here. When you're a psychic sensitive, you can feel the vibrations" (Bloch 175). I--what!? Where did that come from?
"'Oh yes, I brought Mother back home with me. That was the exciting part, you see--going out to the cemetery at night and digging up the grave... At first I thought she really was dead. But she wasn't, of course. She couldn't be. Or else she wouldn't have been able to communicate with me while I was in the hospital all that while. It was only a trance state, really; what we call suspended animation. I knew how to revive here. There are ways, you know, even if some folks call it magic. Magic--that's just a label, you know. Completely meaningless. It wasn't so very long ago that people were saying that electricity was magic. Actually, it's a force, a force which can be harnessed if you know the secret. Life is a force too, a vital force. And like electricity, you can turn it off and on, off and on. I'd turned it off, and I knew how to turn it on again'" (Bloch 190-191). I, uh, what? No thank you Norman Bates, I no longer want this from your point of view, this is getting really weird...
Oh, one more difference is that Norman's insanity doesn't completely come from being to possessive of his Mother, and vice versa. At least not while she was alive. What set him off in the book, in what is basically the same wrap-up scene that basically explains his psychosis at the end of the movie, is that he walks in on his mother and her boyfriend having sex. Because it was the thirties and sex wasn't real without rings on fingers, I guess they covered up and quickly announced that it was okay because they were getting married. Norman later poisoned them both. (Hey, isn't that what sets the kid off in the Halloween movies too? Or something? The original Halloween is just so damn boring...) Well, whatever. The book wraps up in almost the exact same way, with the climax, the psychoanalysts explaining everything--even the final words from Mrs Bates in the film mirror the last few sentences of the book: "She sat there for quite a long time, and then a fly came buzzing through the bars. It lighted on her hand. If she wanted to, she could reach out and swat the fly. But she didn't swat it. She didn't swat it, and she hoped they were watching, because that proved what sort of person she really was. Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly..." (Bloch 223).
Compare that to the film: "It's sad, when a mother has to speak the words that condemn her own son. But I couldn't allow them to believe that I would commit murder. They'll put him away now, as I should have years ago. He was always bad, and in the end he intended to tell them I killed those girls and that man... as if I could do anything but just sit and stare, like one of his stuffed birds. They know I can't move a finger, and I won't. I'll just sit here and be quiet, just in case they do... suspect me. They're probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am. I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching... they'll see. They'll see and they'll know, and they'll say, "Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly..." (Source)
So, wrap-up? Both books were good. Their main faults were in me, in that I had seen both films before even realizing either was originally a book. Campbell's story is a little dated, and drags at times, but I'm sure the audiences in the thirties were practically going insane. It's readable, and it's not necessary at all to the movie, but it doesn't hurt any. If you really like the movie, go ahead, if the movie wasn't your thing, it's not worth it. As for Psycho, yeah, I prefer the movie, but again, I saw that first. Plus, you've have Anthony Perkins delivering in an amazing performance, Alfred Hitchcock, the music, all those iconic scenes... The movie builds something that words on a page simply cannot. It really is a classic, and has not aged like some other Hitchcock films (I like The Birds, but yeah, it doesn't quite hold up that well). If you haven't seen it yet, go NOW. I command it! Even if that isn't your movie genre, you're going to be impressed. And if parts of this post seemed confusing, it is because I didn't want to go out and say directly what the twist was... Though, again, Psycho is a classic and I would honestly be surprised if you didn't know all the twists and tricks. Even if you've never seen it before, there are definitely elements you've seen ripped off in tons of other films/comic books/etc.
As for The Thing, it's a little gorier. It's more of an Alien movie, but grosser. Really, I made Alex watch it, and it looked like he was going to throw up a few times. It is pretty nasty. But if you rent/buy it and start getting grossed out, just watch the claymation test run in the special features. Oh, and The Thing is really long. I tend to get a little antsy towards the end. But I like it! It is good, and it's considered one of Carpenter's best films. So... That's cool. Also a detached head grows spider legs and scuttles away! (I had to add that... Reading about that detail was what made me want to watch the movie in the first place...)
MLA Citation Information: Bloch, Robert. Psycho. TOR: New York, 1959.
Campbell, John W. The Best of John W. Campbell. Ballantine Books: New York, 1976. (290-353).*
*I don't know if citing page numbers is right, or if I should have somehow worked the novella title into there, but those are the pages Who Goes There? is on, in any case...
Friday, August 3, 2012
That Hideous Strength by CS Lewis
Admittedly, this post is a few weeks old because I've been really busy--however, I couldn't pass this up, because this book is the final book in CS Lewis's Space Trilogy. The first is Out of the Silent Planet, and it is followed by Perelandra. This book is very, very different from the first two, and quite often I would pause while reading it and think about how amazing and strange the first two books were (especially the first!) and how... kind of boring this one is. A lot of the beginning of the books are politics between organizations, and I mostly skimmed that, so that probably ruined my interpretations of a lot of events later in the book, too. Also it takes place is 1940's England and not 1940's space. And it starts off way differently, and Merlin is involved, and... honestly, if I had picked up this book first and read the blurb on the back without having read the first two, I would have never read this.
I've also seen this on a few "top 10 dystopic future books" lists, or lists of that flavour. Um... But... Everyone is stopped. And it's boring. Even if you didn't read the first two books about how awesome space is--it's b-b-b-boring. I mean, I got this copy for free, but man, I don't want to own it. I wish I had a copy of the second book instead, even if I had to pay for it, and even if it was really predictable and a little cliche.
Also, the New Yorker calls this book an elaborate satire--uh... Some parts are satiric, but this book definitely isn't a satire. (The New Yorker is also kind of lame, so...)
So this book starts off looking over the shoulders of the newly married Studdocks, Mark and Jane. For a very long time in the book I wasn't sure if Jane was a very to-the-point, accurate, and great picture of a realistic woman, or a picture of what CS Lewis would say was a wayward or not so great woman--turns out the second is true, but damn, if he didn't make that intention clear, I'd be damn impressed with the portrayal of Jane, because she is easy to empathize with and otherwise not an insulting picture of a woman. Oops.
Anyways, Mark really wants to get in with some new organization who are trying to clean the world by killing all livings things so everything will be antiseptic and perfect (that's revealed much later, Mark thinks they're just some university elites for a long time)... They're led by one of the guys from the first book (Devine? The one that didn't get possessed), and are clearly the forces of evil. They're going to achieve all of their stuff with a reanimated head and a reanimated Merlin? I... Okay, I don't really know. I have no goddamn clue, really. But they're the bad guys. Evil Maledils? I remember the terms but not what they refer to. Well... The forces of evil.
Meanwhile, his wife starts having dream-visions, and is eventually caught and protected by the good guys. She leads them right to the real Merlin.
Confused? Sorry, I... I really can't help you. This time it isn't my fault... This book is just...
In the introduction, CS Lewis compares this final book in the trilogy to his nonfiction work The Abolition of Man. I actually bought it a week or two before this book, so maybe when I read that I'll be able to figure out the point of this book (oops).
In the introduction, CS Lewis also says that if one is curious about what happens next, they'll have to wait for JRR Tolkien's book--the book he promised CS Lewis he'd write that he never actually wrote.
So. Many of my first notes regard Jane and her reaction to suddenly being married, the fear of becoming domestic, or somehow losing a part of her in this union, which I would say are, if not legitimate fears, undoubtedly very normal. Of course, I've already explained how any positive point I could have made about that has already been proven moot, so let's just move on, shall we?
Also pretty early on they start discussing mythology and legends (Merlin and such), which is pretty boring--you wouldn't think so, but it is. Also it seems kind of erroneous. Jane's maternal friend, Mrs Dimble, starts talking about how, when King Arthur "invaded" (Lewis 29), there undoubtedly would have been a large sect of British people still wearing togas and speaking Latin and such. Now, to be honest, I don't know a lot about the King Arthur legends, or when they're supposed to be set (I read Beowulf first, so how could you expect me to even care?)--but that just doesn't seem right. The Latin carrying on and becoming changed seems plausible. But the togas? Purely Roman? I can imagine their affects still being there and on the people, but... I kind of picture King Arthur as being a year 1000 kind of thing--which may be wrong in itself. But this doesn't seem to bode for me. (Especially when they mention the high Druid population on the other side of the coin--Romans took particular pleasure in killing Druids and torturing them, and I feel like even Christian Romans would put them to death. So the two societies living simultaneously doesn't seem plausible in the slightest.)
On page 39, Feverstone--Devine (oh, I just got it, like "Divine", but he turns out to be a false prophet)--mentions Weston's murder to Mark to try to explain how evil NICE's (the evil organization is in fact named NICE) enemies are. Again, Weston was possessed by the evil entity and had to be killed, but Mark buys it hook, line, and sinker, and of course Devine wouldn't see their business as evil.
Oh--and Mark says that anything that will preserve the human race is for him. If you'll recall, this blind goal is what made Devine and Weston's twisted nature so clear in the first book: "'You do not love any one of your race... You do not love the mind of your race, nor the body. Any kind of creature will please you if only it is begotten by your kind as they now are'" (Out of the Silent Planet 137). As long as mankind can live on, maybe become better, but as long as sex still works, that's what counts. (Oyarsa says that, in case if you were wondering).
Also, Devine calls from the liquidation/sterilization of "unfit races" (Lewis 49)--one, buying into eugenics, and two, emulating Hitler in a book set during the very last year of WWII--which Mark doesn't seem to pick up on at all. He describes a very Aldous Huxley-like view of the future, with pre-natal education, and one which completely shapes the victim and eats at free will... Mark calls it stupendous instead of being horrified.
Oh, and killing every living thing on earth doesn't bother him either.
Anyways. The two are kind of disconnected. The major satirical element of this book which overall is not a satire is Captain Hardcastle--well, that's not her title, but if you grew up reading Roald Dahl, it's all but instinct to include Captain with Hardcastle. Anyways, she's supposed to be, as I see it, the opposite of Jane, or the worst case scenario of Jane, or something. She's a masculine woman, disgustingly so--she won't wear a corset, she chews tobacco, drinks hard alcohol (whiskey), and smokes huge cigars, talks like a man... Her nickname is "Fairy"--I'm not up on on forties slang, but today I'm sure you know, that's slang for a gay man. And, uh, smoking cigars? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but there is no way in hell CS Lewis wasn't trying to illustrate some kind of penis envy along with making Hardcastle gross and manly in the worst ways. Mark is also very grossed out by her and at one point the idea of having sex with her comes up and he starts feeling nauseous. The Fairy asks if maybe Jane is angry with her husband, or perhaps a little jealous because he spends so much time at NICE, with her, and Mark suffers "uncontrollable disgust" (Lewis 184). Oh! And she leads her own police squad made up of girls--very stereotypical teenage girls, might I add. My opinion? Feminism is great, equality is awesome, but unsexing yourself and becoming so intensely manly is not becoming in the slightest.
Okay. Well, again, Jane is supposed to be pictured as a kind of wayward and headstrong girl and maybe not a good Christian woman or whatever, but then I'm one too, because I empathize with her a lot. While Mark is meeting the Fairy, Jane is having her dreams analyzed by the forces of good--something Jane, given her nature, doesn't completely believe. "She was not indeed sure that it was nonsense; but she had already resolved to treat it as if it were. She would not get 'mixed up in it', would not get drawn in. One had to live one's own life. To avoid entanglements and interferences had long been one of her first principles. Even when she discovered that she was going to marry Mark if he asked her, she though, 'But I must still keep up my own life', had arisen at once and had never for more than a few minutes at a stretch been absent from her mind. Some resentment against love itself, and therefore against Mark, for thus invading her life, remained" (Lewis 70-71). It's a little improper, but again, I think it's easy to see where she's coming from. (And if not, at least consider what year this book is set in.)
Captain Hardcastle/the Fairy makes a point about how it's much easier to fool an educated man with opinions in the paper, whereas a working class man will just assume it's all lies. This I can see, though again, it doesn't have 100% accuracy--yeah, you're going to agree with an opinion you read, and you can be tricked into it and influenced very easily. (It happens to EVERYONE!) I wouldn't say the split between classes makes you more or less susceptible, but England has traditionally had a clearer divide in terms of classes, so maybe that fed some of what CS Lewis had to say about that... Maybe...
Skip to page 145, which is when I realized that CS Lewis wasn't making a stronger female character. She has met the "Director", that is, the leader of the good guys--his name is different, but it's just good old Ransom. His name was changed for legal reasons that are clumsily explained (so he could claim some inheritance? Changing the names was a term of it?), and that's clearly CS Lewis trying to not be obvious about who it is and leave you guessing, but honestly, I realized who it was immediately. He appears much more youthful in this book; in the other books I kind of imagined him as stodgier and older, for whatever reason.
One of the side effects of his journey is that animals recognize his touch of the divine and naturally come to him. I mention this mostly because he has a pet black bear named Mr Bultitude, which is disgustingly adorable. I also mention that many of the times you see him, he is accompanied by a few jackdaws. What's a jackdaw, you may ask? Well, in The Magician's Nephew, a Jackdaw makes (or is) the first joke (in Narnia). I've come to the conclusion that Jackdaws must represent something important to CS Lewis to have been specifically mentioned, and not once but twice. (Let's not forget that Ransom is a Christ figure himself, after "death", and obviously Aslan is Aslan.) Hope? Humour? Whatever it is, they must have meant something special to him.
Oh! And yeah, he tells Jane that she'd be happier in her marriage if she were just a little more obedient. Probably true, but it still makes him sound like something of a jerk--"'[You] have lost love because you never attempted obedience'" (Lewis 145). We can agree that that makes him sound like a jerk, right? Also he says equality is not the "deepest thing" (Lewis 145)... Keep in mind, though, CS Lewis wasn't married until very late in his life, and probably was never really involved romantically with anyone (other than JRR Tolkien, of course)--CS Lewis even (kind of) makes amends for himself a few pages later--Mrs Dimble, I believe, says something along the lines of take what he says with a grain of salt, he's never been married and is kind of old-fashioned. So at least CS Lewis kind of admits that he's not entirely sure of what he's talking about, or only sure of it in a theoretical sense. Also... This is a side note, but he calls humility an erotic necessity... I... Not sure where he's going with that one.
After Ransom explains this all to her, he calls some mice of his in to eat up the crumbs they have dropped from their teatime snack. He does this to demonstrate how very different creatures can in fact live in harmony--but I believe it could also be a reference to a section in The Book of Common Prayer--"We do not presume to come to this thy Table (O merciful Lord) trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We be not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the Flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his Blood, in these holy Mysteries, that we may continually dwell in him, and he in us, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, and our souls washed through his most precious Blood. Amen" (Source). This prayer exists in Anglican/Protestant religion, so CS Lewis was definitely aware of it.
Hmm... Plot, plot... At around this point, Jane is captured by Captain Hardcastle, but saved by the good guys. She will not see her husband (and vice versa) for the rest of the book. Their camps have been permanently separated now.
The next page I marked is just Jane getting used to life in her new home. The men do all the work one day, the women the next, and so on. It makes an interesting point about how men are specific--say, the sugar goes in the green bowl that is on top of x cupboard, and a women will say put that in the the thing. I only mark it because that may seem like another silly mistake by CS Lewis, but nope, my mom does this all the time, and yeah, I do too.
Mark, meanwhile, is taken to see the Head of NICE--literally a reanimated head. I just thought that was kind of silly (and really gross).
"If you must see ghosts, it is better not to disbelieve in them" (Lewis 203).
There's a cook named MacPhee with the good guys. He is a tough guy, willing to do whatever Ransom needs, but Ransom says it's useless--because he doesn't believe in the cause. He adds that he is "'...perfectly ready... in and for this emergency, to allow the existence of these eldils of yours and of a being called Maledil whom they regard as their king'" (Lewis 222). Obviously he can say he'll believe, and maybe if the times are desperate enough he will believe (put me in any horror movie and I'll get religious real quick too)--but he won't truly have faith. And the Blair Witch will kill him. Maybe he shouldn't have mocked those cairns, but nooo, had to go ahead and move them...
Ah! So, Mark isn't a bad guy. NICE frames him for murder and threatens to have him arrested when he tries to leave them and find Jane. He is often deluded by visions of grandeur, but it's not bad, he's just... Well, very pliable. But he decides immortality is silly. He obsesses over death, rather than paying attention to the fact that he'd have an afterlife. He's more worried about his body not being in working order, and he doesn't care about his soul. THIS IS A BAD SIGN IN A CS LEWIS BOOK! He is clearly being marked as an immoral, or at least painfully foolish person.
Yeah, next mark is that he believes he is right--fighting for and with Jane from behind enemy lines, a martyr... Mark is being marked, haha. He also decides to do the right thing--or what he believes is the right thing--but then becomes depressed when he realizes how hard it will be and takes a nap instead. CS Lewis is planting red flags and also throwing rocks at us all at once.
Next note: the good guys get Merlin, the bad guys awaken some guy who isn't Merlin but a fake. Who is he? What happens to him at the end of the book? Uh.... I guess he dies? I don't know who he is though. I for real have no clue. From Wikipedia, I think that Merlin trades clothes with a tramp and NICE sees the clothes and assumes it's Merlin... But could a tramp really fool them that well? I mean, late in the book he appears to hypnotize Mark, or maybe Mark is just exhausted...? Oh well. Anyways, sometimes they refer to Merlin as Merlin, and sometimes Merlinus. Why?
Oh also Ransom is a Pendragon!!! Clumsy plot devices for everyone!!!
Oh and they namedrop Middle Earth. I know it's an archaic term for Earth (being in between heaven and hell, see?), but I also know that JRR Tolkien was CS Lewis's boyfriend, soooo...
Jane complains about more marital problems, how men never listen to everything women have to say, whatever. Maggs, another woman, quotes Mrs Dimble: "'"Did it ever come into your mind to ask whether anyone could listen to all we say?"'" (Lewis 300). BAM. This is fair, I think. It made me laugh, at least. Also, Kurt Vonnegut: "Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about everything" (A Man Without a Country 47).
The book kind of continues in theological debates and NICE politics for a long time. I'm sure important things happen between pages 70-300, but... Well, he spends too much time on the uninteresting stuff. Theological debates are interesting, especially when CS Lewis makes them, but these are so superfluous. I don't think I'd like the book even without them (the cool thing about the first two Spacer Trilogy books was that they were in space!), but at least it would be more to the point. Anyways, in the other two, religious debate is pretty seamlessly in there--okay, yes, the second book became a little cliched and obvious, but I don't recall it ever being so painfully boring and dragged out. Why mention this now? On page 303, the book suddenly becomes interesting, when the book inexplicably starts being told from the view of Mr Bultitude, Ransom's pet bear. I'm sure he's supposed to represent a good soul or a perfect soul in its animalistic simplicity, but whatever, Mr Bultitude is adorable and I cannot handle it.
Okay. I don't have any notes at all until the end of the book. The climactic scene takes place in a dining hall. NICE, thinking they have Merlin, hold a big celebration in congratulations for... getting him...? Well, the real Merlin is there too. He summons animals to attack and kill the leading members of NICE, and a lot of the guests... Listen, I'm not saying that it was really the Animorphs, but they were attacked by a tiger, an elephant, a bear, a gorilla, a wolf, and a snake (Ax has a snake morph!). So. Just saying.
And then Merlin puts the same curse as God put on the tower of Babel on the enemies who were left--that is, that they all would speak different languages so they couldn't understand each other (though in this book they appear to actually be speaking just gibberish).
Oh, and on page 370, "poor" is spelled "pore". Gross.
Anyways, the falling action gets weird, as this quickly becomes the only CS Lewis to feature bears having sex, and elephants having sex. In celebration of the bad guys being wiped out (remember, they wanted to wipe all life from the earth and make it completely sterile), all the animals in the area suddenly get really... excited. Mr Bultitude gets laid, the jackdaw flies out the window to pursue a mate... Ransom actually tells Mr Bultitude to "'Take her, Bultitude. But not in the house'" (Lewis 375). They open the window and find the elephant from before, now making a lady elephant his lady, and when one man goes to close the curtains so no-one has to see elephants doing the nasty, one of the women says: "'No... There will be nothing unfit for anyone to see. Draw them wider'" (Lewis 377). What the hell, CS Lewis. Yeah, maybe we shouldn't view it as indecent, but no-one wants to see that! The lady goes on to say that they are dancing--yeah, the horizontal monster mash. WHY ARE THESE THINGS HAPPENING?? Why, CS Lewis, whyyyy?
Anyways, Mark survives. The book ends with both Jane and Mark thinking about how they will react to one another and what their lives will be like--Mark realizes that he does truly love Jane, the end of the book gives a feeling that Jane loves him (or at least is very affectionate towards him) and it ends before they meet. The ending actually isn't that bad. I mean, the actual end as in the last few sentences, not all the animal sex parts. That's still weird. But the last few sentences wrap up the book (at least Mark and Jane's drama) nicely.
.........So. I guess I've made my opinion on the book pretty clear many times throughout this. It's only a step above A Horse and His Boy, in terms of CS Lewis books--that is, it's nearly my least favourite. (Then again, I read A Horse and His Boy at least once, too.) It's just not great, it's bumbling, it's full of awkward attempts to save its own skin on the part of the author (hey, did you know that Ransom is a Pendragon?)... It's boring and confusing, which is a deadly combination. There's a reason why people really don't know this particular book series--it ends pretty badly and okay, yeah, it's not Chronicles of Narnia. I have a copy of Abolition of Man somewhere, and I know I should probably read it next so everything will be fresh, but I've already read two other books to write about, that are much better (well, one is anyways). So... Yeah, I guess that's it. OH! And when writing for a character in a different language, find someone who actually speaks the language to help you. There's one Italian character in this book who speaks in broken English and he always says "ecco" instead of "here"--ecco means something like, "Here it is", like if you were trying to find your hat, your friend would say "Ecco!" if he got to it first. It doesn't mean here like "I am here". I don't know why it annoyed me so much, I have no right to be annoyed by it (straight Cs/Ds for three years in high school Italian, awww yeah!), but it's really the only thing I remember from Italian class, so goddammit CS Lewis, get your act together.
(Also can we note that at the bottom of my Perelandra post, I say "I really hope I find the third book soon. Although this series isn't stellar, it's pretty good." Dammit, CS Lewis.)
MLA Citation information: Lewis, CS. Out of the Silent Planet. Scribner: New York, 2003.
Lewis, CS. That Hideous Strength. Scribner: New York, 2003.
I've also seen this on a few "top 10 dystopic future books" lists, or lists of that flavour. Um... But... Everyone is stopped. And it's boring. Even if you didn't read the first two books about how awesome space is--it's b-b-b-boring. I mean, I got this copy for free, but man, I don't want to own it. I wish I had a copy of the second book instead, even if I had to pay for it, and even if it was really predictable and a little cliche.
Also, the New Yorker calls this book an elaborate satire--uh... Some parts are satiric, but this book definitely isn't a satire. (The New Yorker is also kind of lame, so...)
So this book starts off looking over the shoulders of the newly married Studdocks, Mark and Jane. For a very long time in the book I wasn't sure if Jane was a very to-the-point, accurate, and great picture of a realistic woman, or a picture of what CS Lewis would say was a wayward or not so great woman--turns out the second is true, but damn, if he didn't make that intention clear, I'd be damn impressed with the portrayal of Jane, because she is easy to empathize with and otherwise not an insulting picture of a woman. Oops.
Anyways, Mark really wants to get in with some new organization who are trying to clean the world by killing all livings things so everything will be antiseptic and perfect (that's revealed much later, Mark thinks they're just some university elites for a long time)... They're led by one of the guys from the first book (Devine? The one that didn't get possessed), and are clearly the forces of evil. They're going to achieve all of their stuff with a reanimated head and a reanimated Merlin? I... Okay, I don't really know. I have no goddamn clue, really. But they're the bad guys. Evil Maledils? I remember the terms but not what they refer to. Well... The forces of evil.
Meanwhile, his wife starts having dream-visions, and is eventually caught and protected by the good guys. She leads them right to the real Merlin.
Confused? Sorry, I... I really can't help you. This time it isn't my fault... This book is just...
In the introduction, CS Lewis compares this final book in the trilogy to his nonfiction work The Abolition of Man. I actually bought it a week or two before this book, so maybe when I read that I'll be able to figure out the point of this book (oops).
In the introduction, CS Lewis also says that if one is curious about what happens next, they'll have to wait for JRR Tolkien's book--the book he promised CS Lewis he'd write that he never actually wrote.
So. Many of my first notes regard Jane and her reaction to suddenly being married, the fear of becoming domestic, or somehow losing a part of her in this union, which I would say are, if not legitimate fears, undoubtedly very normal. Of course, I've already explained how any positive point I could have made about that has already been proven moot, so let's just move on, shall we?
Also pretty early on they start discussing mythology and legends (Merlin and such), which is pretty boring--you wouldn't think so, but it is. Also it seems kind of erroneous. Jane's maternal friend, Mrs Dimble, starts talking about how, when King Arthur "invaded" (Lewis 29), there undoubtedly would have been a large sect of British people still wearing togas and speaking Latin and such. Now, to be honest, I don't know a lot about the King Arthur legends, or when they're supposed to be set (I read Beowulf first, so how could you expect me to even care?)--but that just doesn't seem right. The Latin carrying on and becoming changed seems plausible. But the togas? Purely Roman? I can imagine their affects still being there and on the people, but... I kind of picture King Arthur as being a year 1000 kind of thing--which may be wrong in itself. But this doesn't seem to bode for me. (Especially when they mention the high Druid population on the other side of the coin--Romans took particular pleasure in killing Druids and torturing them, and I feel like even Christian Romans would put them to death. So the two societies living simultaneously doesn't seem plausible in the slightest.)
On page 39, Feverstone--Devine (oh, I just got it, like "Divine", but he turns out to be a false prophet)--mentions Weston's murder to Mark to try to explain how evil NICE's (the evil organization is in fact named NICE) enemies are. Again, Weston was possessed by the evil entity and had to be killed, but Mark buys it hook, line, and sinker, and of course Devine wouldn't see their business as evil.
Oh--and Mark says that anything that will preserve the human race is for him. If you'll recall, this blind goal is what made Devine and Weston's twisted nature so clear in the first book: "'You do not love any one of your race... You do not love the mind of your race, nor the body. Any kind of creature will please you if only it is begotten by your kind as they now are'" (Out of the Silent Planet 137). As long as mankind can live on, maybe become better, but as long as sex still works, that's what counts. (Oyarsa says that, in case if you were wondering).
Also, Devine calls from the liquidation/sterilization of "unfit races" (Lewis 49)--one, buying into eugenics, and two, emulating Hitler in a book set during the very last year of WWII--which Mark doesn't seem to pick up on at all. He describes a very Aldous Huxley-like view of the future, with pre-natal education, and one which completely shapes the victim and eats at free will... Mark calls it stupendous instead of being horrified.
Oh, and killing every living thing on earth doesn't bother him either.
Anyways. The two are kind of disconnected. The major satirical element of this book which overall is not a satire is Captain Hardcastle--well, that's not her title, but if you grew up reading Roald Dahl, it's all but instinct to include Captain with Hardcastle. Anyways, she's supposed to be, as I see it, the opposite of Jane, or the worst case scenario of Jane, or something. She's a masculine woman, disgustingly so--she won't wear a corset, she chews tobacco, drinks hard alcohol (whiskey), and smokes huge cigars, talks like a man... Her nickname is "Fairy"--I'm not up on on forties slang, but today I'm sure you know, that's slang for a gay man. And, uh, smoking cigars? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but there is no way in hell CS Lewis wasn't trying to illustrate some kind of penis envy along with making Hardcastle gross and manly in the worst ways. Mark is also very grossed out by her and at one point the idea of having sex with her comes up and he starts feeling nauseous. The Fairy asks if maybe Jane is angry with her husband, or perhaps a little jealous because he spends so much time at NICE, with her, and Mark suffers "uncontrollable disgust" (Lewis 184). Oh! And she leads her own police squad made up of girls--very stereotypical teenage girls, might I add. My opinion? Feminism is great, equality is awesome, but unsexing yourself and becoming so intensely manly is not becoming in the slightest.
Okay. Well, again, Jane is supposed to be pictured as a kind of wayward and headstrong girl and maybe not a good Christian woman or whatever, but then I'm one too, because I empathize with her a lot. While Mark is meeting the Fairy, Jane is having her dreams analyzed by the forces of good--something Jane, given her nature, doesn't completely believe. "She was not indeed sure that it was nonsense; but she had already resolved to treat it as if it were. She would not get 'mixed up in it', would not get drawn in. One had to live one's own life. To avoid entanglements and interferences had long been one of her first principles. Even when she discovered that she was going to marry Mark if he asked her, she though, 'But I must still keep up my own life', had arisen at once and had never for more than a few minutes at a stretch been absent from her mind. Some resentment against love itself, and therefore against Mark, for thus invading her life, remained" (Lewis 70-71). It's a little improper, but again, I think it's easy to see where she's coming from. (And if not, at least consider what year this book is set in.)
Captain Hardcastle/the Fairy makes a point about how it's much easier to fool an educated man with opinions in the paper, whereas a working class man will just assume it's all lies. This I can see, though again, it doesn't have 100% accuracy--yeah, you're going to agree with an opinion you read, and you can be tricked into it and influenced very easily. (It happens to EVERYONE!) I wouldn't say the split between classes makes you more or less susceptible, but England has traditionally had a clearer divide in terms of classes, so maybe that fed some of what CS Lewis had to say about that... Maybe...
Skip to page 145, which is when I realized that CS Lewis wasn't making a stronger female character. She has met the "Director", that is, the leader of the good guys--his name is different, but it's just good old Ransom. His name was changed for legal reasons that are clumsily explained (so he could claim some inheritance? Changing the names was a term of it?), and that's clearly CS Lewis trying to not be obvious about who it is and leave you guessing, but honestly, I realized who it was immediately. He appears much more youthful in this book; in the other books I kind of imagined him as stodgier and older, for whatever reason.
One of the side effects of his journey is that animals recognize his touch of the divine and naturally come to him. I mention this mostly because he has a pet black bear named Mr Bultitude, which is disgustingly adorable. I also mention that many of the times you see him, he is accompanied by a few jackdaws. What's a jackdaw, you may ask? Well, in The Magician's Nephew, a Jackdaw makes (or is) the first joke (in Narnia). I've come to the conclusion that Jackdaws must represent something important to CS Lewis to have been specifically mentioned, and not once but twice. (Let's not forget that Ransom is a Christ figure himself, after "death", and obviously Aslan is Aslan.) Hope? Humour? Whatever it is, they must have meant something special to him.
Oh! And yeah, he tells Jane that she'd be happier in her marriage if she were just a little more obedient. Probably true, but it still makes him sound like something of a jerk--"'[You] have lost love because you never attempted obedience'" (Lewis 145). We can agree that that makes him sound like a jerk, right? Also he says equality is not the "deepest thing" (Lewis 145)... Keep in mind, though, CS Lewis wasn't married until very late in his life, and probably was never really involved romantically with anyone (other than JRR Tolkien, of course)--CS Lewis even (kind of) makes amends for himself a few pages later--Mrs Dimble, I believe, says something along the lines of take what he says with a grain of salt, he's never been married and is kind of old-fashioned. So at least CS Lewis kind of admits that he's not entirely sure of what he's talking about, or only sure of it in a theoretical sense. Also... This is a side note, but he calls humility an erotic necessity... I... Not sure where he's going with that one.
After Ransom explains this all to her, he calls some mice of his in to eat up the crumbs they have dropped from their teatime snack. He does this to demonstrate how very different creatures can in fact live in harmony--but I believe it could also be a reference to a section in The Book of Common Prayer--"We do not presume to come to this thy Table (O merciful Lord) trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We be not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the Flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his Blood, in these holy Mysteries, that we may continually dwell in him, and he in us, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, and our souls washed through his most precious Blood. Amen" (Source). This prayer exists in Anglican/Protestant religion, so CS Lewis was definitely aware of it.
Hmm... Plot, plot... At around this point, Jane is captured by Captain Hardcastle, but saved by the good guys. She will not see her husband (and vice versa) for the rest of the book. Their camps have been permanently separated now.
The next page I marked is just Jane getting used to life in her new home. The men do all the work one day, the women the next, and so on. It makes an interesting point about how men are specific--say, the sugar goes in the green bowl that is on top of x cupboard, and a women will say put that in the the thing. I only mark it because that may seem like another silly mistake by CS Lewis, but nope, my mom does this all the time, and yeah, I do too.
Mark, meanwhile, is taken to see the Head of NICE--literally a reanimated head. I just thought that was kind of silly (and really gross).
"If you must see ghosts, it is better not to disbelieve in them" (Lewis 203).
There's a cook named MacPhee with the good guys. He is a tough guy, willing to do whatever Ransom needs, but Ransom says it's useless--because he doesn't believe in the cause. He adds that he is "'...perfectly ready... in and for this emergency, to allow the existence of these eldils of yours and of a being called Maledil whom they regard as their king'" (Lewis 222). Obviously he can say he'll believe, and maybe if the times are desperate enough he will believe (put me in any horror movie and I'll get religious real quick too)--but he won't truly have faith. And the Blair Witch will kill him. Maybe he shouldn't have mocked those cairns, but nooo, had to go ahead and move them...
Ah! So, Mark isn't a bad guy. NICE frames him for murder and threatens to have him arrested when he tries to leave them and find Jane. He is often deluded by visions of grandeur, but it's not bad, he's just... Well, very pliable. But he decides immortality is silly. He obsesses over death, rather than paying attention to the fact that he'd have an afterlife. He's more worried about his body not being in working order, and he doesn't care about his soul. THIS IS A BAD SIGN IN A CS LEWIS BOOK! He is clearly being marked as an immoral, or at least painfully foolish person.
Yeah, next mark is that he believes he is right--fighting for and with Jane from behind enemy lines, a martyr... Mark is being marked, haha. He also decides to do the right thing--or what he believes is the right thing--but then becomes depressed when he realizes how hard it will be and takes a nap instead. CS Lewis is planting red flags and also throwing rocks at us all at once.
Next note: the good guys get Merlin, the bad guys awaken some guy who isn't Merlin but a fake. Who is he? What happens to him at the end of the book? Uh.... I guess he dies? I don't know who he is though. I for real have no clue. From Wikipedia, I think that Merlin trades clothes with a tramp and NICE sees the clothes and assumes it's Merlin... But could a tramp really fool them that well? I mean, late in the book he appears to hypnotize Mark, or maybe Mark is just exhausted...? Oh well. Anyways, sometimes they refer to Merlin as Merlin, and sometimes Merlinus. Why?
Oh also Ransom is a Pendragon!!! Clumsy plot devices for everyone!!!
Oh and they namedrop Middle Earth. I know it's an archaic term for Earth (being in between heaven and hell, see?), but I also know that JRR Tolkien was CS Lewis's boyfriend, soooo...
Jane complains about more marital problems, how men never listen to everything women have to say, whatever. Maggs, another woman, quotes Mrs Dimble: "'"Did it ever come into your mind to ask whether anyone could listen to all we say?"'" (Lewis 300). BAM. This is fair, I think. It made me laugh, at least. Also, Kurt Vonnegut: "Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about everything" (A Man Without a Country 47).
The book kind of continues in theological debates and NICE politics for a long time. I'm sure important things happen between pages 70-300, but... Well, he spends too much time on the uninteresting stuff. Theological debates are interesting, especially when CS Lewis makes them, but these are so superfluous. I don't think I'd like the book even without them (the cool thing about the first two Spacer Trilogy books was that they were in space!), but at least it would be more to the point. Anyways, in the other two, religious debate is pretty seamlessly in there--okay, yes, the second book became a little cliched and obvious, but I don't recall it ever being so painfully boring and dragged out. Why mention this now? On page 303, the book suddenly becomes interesting, when the book inexplicably starts being told from the view of Mr Bultitude, Ransom's pet bear. I'm sure he's supposed to represent a good soul or a perfect soul in its animalistic simplicity, but whatever, Mr Bultitude is adorable and I cannot handle it.
Okay. I don't have any notes at all until the end of the book. The climactic scene takes place in a dining hall. NICE, thinking they have Merlin, hold a big celebration in congratulations for... getting him...? Well, the real Merlin is there too. He summons animals to attack and kill the leading members of NICE, and a lot of the guests... Listen, I'm not saying that it was really the Animorphs, but they were attacked by a tiger, an elephant, a bear, a gorilla, a wolf, and a snake (Ax has a snake morph!). So. Just saying.
And then Merlin puts the same curse as God put on the tower of Babel on the enemies who were left--that is, that they all would speak different languages so they couldn't understand each other (though in this book they appear to actually be speaking just gibberish).
Oh, and on page 370, "poor" is spelled "pore". Gross.
Anyways, the falling action gets weird, as this quickly becomes the only CS Lewis to feature bears having sex, and elephants having sex. In celebration of the bad guys being wiped out (remember, they wanted to wipe all life from the earth and make it completely sterile), all the animals in the area suddenly get really... excited. Mr Bultitude gets laid, the jackdaw flies out the window to pursue a mate... Ransom actually tells Mr Bultitude to "'Take her, Bultitude. But not in the house'" (Lewis 375). They open the window and find the elephant from before, now making a lady elephant his lady, and when one man goes to close the curtains so no-one has to see elephants doing the nasty, one of the women says: "'No... There will be nothing unfit for anyone to see. Draw them wider'" (Lewis 377). What the hell, CS Lewis. Yeah, maybe we shouldn't view it as indecent, but no-one wants to see that! The lady goes on to say that they are dancing--yeah, the horizontal monster mash. WHY ARE THESE THINGS HAPPENING?? Why, CS Lewis, whyyyy?
Anyways, Mark survives. The book ends with both Jane and Mark thinking about how they will react to one another and what their lives will be like--Mark realizes that he does truly love Jane, the end of the book gives a feeling that Jane loves him (or at least is very affectionate towards him) and it ends before they meet. The ending actually isn't that bad. I mean, the actual end as in the last few sentences, not all the animal sex parts. That's still weird. But the last few sentences wrap up the book (at least Mark and Jane's drama) nicely.
.........So. I guess I've made my opinion on the book pretty clear many times throughout this. It's only a step above A Horse and His Boy, in terms of CS Lewis books--that is, it's nearly my least favourite. (Then again, I read A Horse and His Boy at least once, too.) It's just not great, it's bumbling, it's full of awkward attempts to save its own skin on the part of the author (hey, did you know that Ransom is a Pendragon?)... It's boring and confusing, which is a deadly combination. There's a reason why people really don't know this particular book series--it ends pretty badly and okay, yeah, it's not Chronicles of Narnia. I have a copy of Abolition of Man somewhere, and I know I should probably read it next so everything will be fresh, but I've already read two other books to write about, that are much better (well, one is anyways). So... Yeah, I guess that's it. OH! And when writing for a character in a different language, find someone who actually speaks the language to help you. There's one Italian character in this book who speaks in broken English and he always says "ecco" instead of "here"--ecco means something like, "Here it is", like if you were trying to find your hat, your friend would say "Ecco!" if he got to it first. It doesn't mean here like "I am here". I don't know why it annoyed me so much, I have no right to be annoyed by it (straight Cs/Ds for three years in high school Italian, awww yeah!), but it's really the only thing I remember from Italian class, so goddammit CS Lewis, get your act together.
(Also can we note that at the bottom of my Perelandra post, I say "I really hope I find the third book soon. Although this series isn't stellar, it's pretty good." Dammit, CS Lewis.)
MLA Citation information: Lewis, CS. Out of the Silent Planet. Scribner: New York, 2003.
Lewis, CS. That Hideous Strength. Scribner: New York, 2003.
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