Books and related things

Current System Configuration: First Quarter Storm
Earworms:
-Through the Fire and Flames by Dragon Force [Power Metal]
-Warriors by Freedom Call [Power Metal]
-XTC by Psychic Lover [JRock, Witchblade Anime OP]
Sustenance:
[Breakfast] Oatmeal
[Lunch] Kielbasa, buttered veggies, whole wheat toast with olive oil
[Dinner] Sbarro's Spinach and Mushroom pizza.
[Coffee] Tall Mocha frappuccino with Valencia. Twice Blended.

I'm really happy with the new reading list we're using for my English 1 class. The previous year's list of books was at best hard to relate to, and at worst horribly boring. Compare these two lists:

Last Year
1st Quarter: Silas Marner by George Elliot
2nd Quarter: Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
3rd Quarter: The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
4th Quarter: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

This Year
1st Quarter: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
2nd Quarter: The Giver by Lois Lowry
3rd Quarter: The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
4th Quarter: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Silas Marner wasn't really bad, albeit mildly boring. It was just rather hard to relate to and the way the local manner of speech was rendered made it exceedingly hard to take in at times. Oliver Twist, on the other hand, was downright horrible. Dickens's prose is long-winded, wordy, and preachy. The plot felt like one of the telenovelas on ABS-CBN. Among these four, I liked the Red Badge the most. It was really short and was a rather vivid tale of war, though there were times when the narration confused me. Heart of Darkness was difficult to wrestle with, but it was still nowhere as awful as Oliver Twist.

Among this year's readings, the only one I haven't read yet is The Giver. I've already gone through Lord of the Flies and The Alchemist before, and both were quite engaging to read. I'm almost done with The Secret Garden, and I was pleasantly surprised by it. I thought it would be another dreary and confusing story, but I have to say that it is definitely one of the better classics I've read. I can't say too much about it now as most of the readers of this blog are my students who should be reading the novel on their own.

I took a trip to the bookstore a while ago to hunt for the Bartimaeus trilogy. I only found the second book (The Golem's Eye). Perhaps tomorrow I'll have better luck at Powerbooks. I intend to do a fair amount of book hunting soon. I have yet to finish That Hideous Strength, though--I had to put it down for a while. It really is a challenging read.

The only other book I'm hunting for right now (probably going to ask my brother to get it for me in Barnes and Noble before he comes home from the US) is Dissension, the third book in Magic: The Gathering's Ravnica trilogy. Ravnica: City of Guilds was good but rather convoluted, while Guildpact was complex in an amusing way. I never thought Teysa Karlov would make such a good protagonist, but she just shines in it. I expect Dissension to be full of action. After all, Rakdos the Defiler has come to party, and Razia's legion of angels isn't too happy about that.

~~~

On a rather sad note, I heard from one of my students that her mother was not letting her read Lord of the Rings and other fantasy books. According to the mother, fantasy was "useless" and Tolkien was crazy to have spent so much time creating his own universe.

I beg to differ. All literature is rooted in human experience, and Tolkien's "own world" is in fact supposed to be OUR world. Arda IS Earth. On top of that, Tolkien's work is ultimately uplifting.

C.S. Lewis created his own world too (Narnia), and it too is an echo of ours. Wild and beautiful and tragically marred by a single act of human foolishness, ending only to be transformed into a truer, wilder, and more wonderful version of itself.

Now, if you want to read work by a crackpot, you might want to check out H.P. Lovecraft's stuff. I haven't read them personally, but in general it seems his work makes people want to believe that a giant alien octopus man is sleeping under the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Lovecraft has a depressing, nihilistic point of view that makes you feel insignificant and weak. His mighty gods are not beings of glory, but twisted, vile creatures, mockeries of creation. Slugs, octopi, tentacle monsters, worms, giant demonic amoebas, giants with tentacles in place of faces--it goes on, and it sickens me. His obsession with tentacles is disturbing enough. Calling this guy a crackpot would not do him justice.

I really think it's unfair to fantasy stories to call them useless. Is "real-world" fiction any more genuine? Are their values even more applicable to human life? I'd definitely consider the values of honor, faith, hope and brotherhood (which appear in Lord of the Rings) much more applicable to life than the shallow materialism and consumerism promoted in the bilgewater known as Chick Lit.

I don't advocate rebellion against one's parents, dear student, but you'll always have your chance to read. Be thankful that you can read at all, and that you have good taste in books. Ultimately, your mind and your dreams are your own.