Equal Rites

This is the second time I had attempted to read Equal Rites and thankfully this time I finished it! I nearly read most of it on a plane long ago, however upon returning without finishing it, I never got back to it. My first Discworld book was unfortunately not this one as well. Much long ago in middle school I had several friends who were very much into it, and I decided to check it out. I bought Maskerade (yes, it’s spelled that way!) from the book store as something to read on a ski vacation, and I was very much in love with the Phantom of the Opera and I was aware that it was a parody, so I picked that one. Little did I know that there is very much a correct order (heavily documented by fan websites) in which to follow to understand the characters. I remember being quite confused upon reading Maskerade, seeing as it just jumps right in with various references to previous storylines and I was completely missing what was going on. Several years later I read which one to read first, Equal Rites from the witch series, which I bought, but as I said never finished. And now I have finished it.

And I am happy to say it was delightful. I loved how, unlike most fantasy stories starring hero women, which like to put women who are at least of the age of a beautiful figure and sexuality, this book starred a child who is a cute brat. There is no sexuality to be found even though it is a book on sexism. This makes the gender morals of the story much clearer without mucking it up with romance or any nonsense that can be added to teenage fantasy.

Terry Pratchett also has that delightful way of writing in that British way, lots of dry sarcasm and light hearted narration. It makes me feel more comfortable and helps with making headway in the book. He is also quite clever sometimes in that you have to have a shred of intelligence at least to pick up on some of his jokes which I derive some satisfaction from.

I’m glad I was able to pick this book back up again after so long it has lay on the bathroom floor of my room near the laundry basket, it always made me feel guilty to see it. Now I’ve officially had the proper introduction to the witch series and hope to continue down the correct chronological path back down to Maskerade, once again!
Also as an aside, I love Good Omens and I could read it over and over. I’m so glad that this class let me read a book each of the two authors of Good Omens alone, as now I recognize their own unique styles of storytelling and writing outside of that collaboration.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I notice that reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire over again, you get to experience all the things that you forgot about, seeing as the movie left them out. Goblet of Fire was the first incredibly long Harry Potter book. And up until now the movies tried to include most of the scenes and there only a few expendable bits of classroom life that were dropped from the original version. However, due to Goblet’s incredible jump in length, much of what we see in the book has been left out of the movie, and as I go through it this time I am delighted to remember things that I had read so long ago, most notably my favorite scene of the entire book, which of course was not in the movie.

Harry gets his foot stuck in a trick step on a staircase, and drops his screaming egg, which brings Filch and his cat, Snape, and Moody, all to the foot of the staircase arguing over the egg and the Marauder’s Map. I remember being on the edge of my seat when I read through it the first time and this time I read through with a delightful Snape-is-awesome grin on my face. Also gone is the ever important emerging Percy storyline, where in later books he betrays the Weasley family, which I had also forgotten due to its non-existence in the movies. Also missing is Hermione’s revenge of Rita Skeeter! Such a payoff, I love it!

What is interesting about JK is how often she hands us the ending of the book on a silver platter and how often it was missed upon first reading. It was a surprise to me when I first read that Moody was in fact the villain and Voldemort’s servant, but it is just silly how often it comes up, now that I know it and can look for it everywhere, reminding us that Moody was attacked the day before school, and how he emerges at Hogwarts in a burst of lightning, and how “someone” is brewing Polyjuice Potion and how he’s actually “Crouch” on the Maruader’s Map and on and on. But of course, being as that it is still considered a children’s book, when I was younger reading it I didn’t suspect.

Nick brought up an interesting issue when it came to the whole Christmas holidays….obviously these wizards are celebrating Christmas just like normal British kids…but wait a minute…don’t forget the Christ in Christmas….do wizards believe in that? Because certainly they wouldn’t believe from the ancient stories that Jesus was performing miracles, and that he would just in fact be a wizard that is dangerously showing off his magic in front of muggles. And in that case, wouldn’t they shun a celebration of a man who almost blew their cover?

Har har har.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter is continuing his audio journey out loud as I read these books to Nick out loud…Azkaban used to be my favorite installment of Harry (though with the release of the last book I think I had to replace it.) My favorite part of this book has always been the incredibly long scene at the end told over several chapters which starts with Buckbeak’s “execution” and moves on through the meeting of Sirius Black in the Shrieking Shack, the reveal of Peter Pettigrew as Ron’s pet rat Scabbers, the werewolf transformation, the travelling back in time, right up to the rescue.

What I found the most delightful was how seamless the travelling through time was. JK Rowling is always considered to be a mediocre writer but one must admit how delightful her ideas turn out (well of course, she’s made millions…billions yet?) Her version of time travel is the first one I’ve seen/read that has made any sense! When most write about time travel they forget about the element that in order for time travel to be possible that would mean that time would have to be cyclical, and that before the future selves decided to travel back in time, they would have appeared in the past that they had travelled to before they even chose to leave. (Wow it’s difficult to put into words how it makes sense but of course they would have to have already appeared in the past to successfully have changed it!) JK thankfully made everything come together wit her version of time travel in that Buckbeak was already saved before they even decided to rescue him seeing as their future selves were already in the past rescuing before their past selves knew to go back in the future! It’s a crazy mindbending paradoxical conundrum, but I’m so happy it all works out (and it even works so well in the movie, where Hermione throws the rock, and howls to save Harry’s life….watch the movie if you don’t remember. I love how everything falls into place. I also hate the werewolf design in the damn movie…Snape clearly states in the first book that the main difference between a wolf and a werewolf is the repellant to wolfsbane…not a visial difference. Sigh…monkey wolf.)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was an experience that I would very much liken to my first time seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show. I had heard so much about it for years and years, and had never experienced it myself, and then when you get to it you realize that all the hype is out of an old fan love and you’re not one who can see it like that at this point. A cult favorite as you will.

I was surprised by the length as well (basing this on the fact that I just read The Hitchhiker’s Guide and did not continue through the entire collection), in a rather pleasant turn events it was quite an easy read for me and I was able to blast through it in a couple night’s reading (as oppsed to American Gods which took me quite a long time. It was a welcome follow up.) I had already seen the movie, so that actually helped me get through the continuity of the strangely odd series of events. Though the book of course also helped things like the whale that plummeted to his death in the infinite probability drive make more sense, if that even makes any sense.

To me, and I of course in anyway don’t mean to offend a fan, but it seemed like a mishmash of ideas. A rather light hearted take on writing, as one who would just sit down for an afternoon and describe a world in free writing. Not to say that it wasn’t enjoyable, I of course love a casual book that isn’t going to bog me down in impossibly boring descriptions, but the randomness was a little…incredibly random.

The entire time I was reading it as well, I heard the entire thing in appropriate British accents, which made everything make sense even further, especially finding and latching on to the dry sarcasm. If I were to write something I would hope that I could be as casual as this, inserting one’s own jokes into the narration, as if having a casual conversation with the inevitable reader. Quite an amusing trip, if even though it’s a bit strange one.

A Clockwork Orange

Before I had read the book I had already seen Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange twice. I was fascinated by the character of Alex and the strange alternate world they lived in. And not until I picked up the book did I remember the strange gibberish that was used as the basis for the dialogue (although I am completely surprised, upon a third viewing of the movie after I had read the book, I can’t believe I even knew what was going on. Perhaps I merely understood by visual as opposed to audio. Though of course, now that I had read the book I understood everything perfectly, I just didn’t understand how I had understood before!)

A Clockwork Orange’s gibberish of course was based on a rather casual patois of Russian. My favorite part of reading the book was slowly figuring out what was being said. When I first started reading I had no idea what was even being talked about, particularly in the nouns (such as parts of the body…like “gulliver” and “rookers”) and the verbs. Luckily, about two thirds of the way through reading I looked up on the internet a Clockwork Orange dictionary site and quickly learned all the words that I just couldn’t figure out even with repeated usage.

I was surprised as well about the author’s note that came at the front of my book. Burgess’s note stated that he was very upset about the first publishing of his book in America where they left out the last chapter, and how the movie adaptation as well had left out the last chapter, and because of this his character Alex no longer had an arc, which the last chapter intends to do, to show one’s ability to move on. However, upon reading this legendary last chapter I found it rather perpetuated the image that’s painted of him in the first place. The fact that he carries a picture of a baby around in his pocket, with an urge to find a wife to impregnate in the end. I found it a rather creepy ending to the story. I don’t believe the movie suffered too much from the elimination of this story point, particularly because it is a few years later and not directly afterwards. I find the author perhaps was just sore about his work not being completely represented in its entirety, however if you compare the adaptation of A Clockwork Orange from a book to a movie with other movies created from books, this one comes incredibly close and he should be happy it wasn’t as butchered as the fate of some other books.

Golden Compass

I started the Golden Compass (haven’t finished it) but after seeing the movie several years ago I was very compelled. I would like to continue to read it when I find the time. I am just so delighted with a world where another part of our soul is a separate talking personality animal who is always with you. I love it. I want one so bad. It’s like always having a pet with you, and who always understands what you’re thinking and can talk things out. I am so jealous of this little world! And I love how the children’s daemons are always changing because they are unsure of how they are until they grow up. Almost like a career. The idea of what you’re are going to become is always an uncertainty when you are young and clouded with many thoughts. If I were to have a daemon I would very much like to have the exact breed of dog I would get as a pet…a small Klee Kai, a toy version of a snow dog…who are afraid of other people, and much like me, and only trust those who it has gotten quite a lot of time to know. And well if I didn’t have that luck I’d at least love to have an aloof little cat at my side at all times. Oh how I can dream. Back to the book though, Lord Azriel seems to have quite a detached way of thinking about family….when it comes to his relationship with Laira it quite confuses me. So far he has treated her much more like a stranger’s child, or an unruly pupil, who he feels as if he has some sort of obligation to discipline but doesn’t have enough feeling for to care…ah well. I hope to pick it up again soon and continue on my book reading journey.

American Gods

I have to say that I am SO HAPPY that I was told to read American Gods. American Gods has been sitting on my bookshelf brand new and never opened for perhaps four years or something ridiculous. And it seemed quite intimidating. 600 pages or so, fairly generic cover, I don’t know. I had bought American Gods and Neverwhere at the same time when I was looking randomly around in the science fiction/fantasy section and I liked what I read on the backs of the paperbacks. I read about…oh, maybe 30 pages of Neverwhere and never got around to picking it back up again….and American Gods remained never opened. However….upon reading that it was assigned on the class list I thought well I own that book, I should go ahead and see what it’s about…and I am SO happy I did. Yes. American Gods is so rich and interesting and full of character and magic and interest and sex and death and I love it all. The colors were so vivid and oh my lord I need to go to The House on the Rock. Seriously. I need to go there. I loved the careful description of each room and I of course looked it up online as soon as I finished that chapter. And even though it’s in nowhere, Wisconsin, I need to be in a place that crazy. I loved Gaiman’s depiction of Shadow (which by the way I always imagined looked like Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark in Iron Man). Gaiman’s writing of him was so honest, and of course I’m sure Gaiman has been in a state like that in some time in his life.

I would say my favorite parts of the book were those with Sam and Bast. I am normally absolutely not interested in female characters in most tv shows or movies. They are often written very shallowly or something. But both Sam and Bast were very empowered, proud, women, rich in personality in the glimpses of them we saw. I loved all the parts with the Egyptian gods in them, and of course how clever it was to make their modern day personas working at a funeral home.

I also was of course very curious about the one god that was a mystery. The one that shadow had riding in the backseat of his car and he was unable to remember his face or what he said. At first I thought that it was an example of a god who had simply been forgotten, and maybe that is the case. But there was also a fuller scene where he is in Vegas and helps a waitress come into a lucky future…so perhaps he could be a very elusive god who blesses those that he finds but can’t be found if you look to him….I definitely can’t get a good grip on who he was supposed to be. I looked online for it and of course everyone is speculating but no one knows. And fans have asked Gaiman himself and he simply implies that we must think it out for ourselves.

Ah well. I am happy about American Gods because I feel like it is the best stand-alone novel I have read in a very long time. And I got through it without problems! I was able to read 600 pages in a very short time…that’s often hard for someone with an attention span like mine!

Interview With The Vampire

I’m glad I got a chance to read this book. I had only recently seen the movie for the first time a year ago, and I did love it. I have to say though that if it wasn’t assigned I probably wouldn’t have read it. I sadly don’t get to read very often. And I used to all the time when I was in earlier school. But now in college with the computer screen taking over my life I don’t often look to books when I come home at night. Harry Potter is the only thing I had been keeping up with on a regular basis (although sadly it’s over.) This class is the motivator that had me spend my summer reading more books than I have in a long time, it’s crazy. And I’m glad, because I got to read some things that would have taken me a while to get around to or never at all.

Interview with a Vampire was great to read. I didn’t mind that I already knew what happened because of the film (which was a fairly accurate interpretation) because I had the delightful images of Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas as vampires. Yes yes I also imagined Lestat as his same actor but only because he was good at it and decently costumed. We don’t talk about him here. Ah well. Anyway the first difference I noticed was the fact that Louie has much more of a back story here, and is not the same as the one with the movie. The movie summarizes his suicidal thoughts at the beginning with “his wife and kids died” when in fact he was never married and it was all about his little brother. What I also loved about the book was the very vividly painted picture of old time New Orleans, for example when Louie takes Lestat’s body out to Lake Ponchartrain. We get much more of a sense of the Louisiana swamp land and the creatures there when we have these nice long descriptions, as opposed to sets that were probably not filmed anywhere near there. Something that was also vastly different in my view was the treatment of Claudia. In the movie, we have a very young Kirsten Dunst playing the woman-child vampire and she is their hot tempered child. But in the book we learn much more about her mature tendencies, and her dualistic personality, and the sexual tones that even come in which the movie doesn’t go close to touching due to the odd nature of the film issue that would arise between such a child actress and an adult male actor. But in the book, with Anne Rice behind the wheel of Claudia, she is a woman who knows how to write as a woman, as opposed to Kirsten Dunst who has never been a woman who knows how to be a child and be directed as she was told to do. Claudia is just a completely different experience to me when reading as opposed to viewing.

I also enjoyed the part that we do not get to see in the movie, where Louie and Claudia search the rural European country side and find the feral corpse-like vampires. There was one part in fact that I did not quite understand where they witness a vampiress, or a supposed one, being dug up from her coffin and staked through the heart. My question is, seeing as the Anne Rice vampire rules seem to be clear that they can’t teleport, how did this vampiress get into a coffin that’s buried in the ground? If I remember, Louie seems to be sure that she was in fact a real one, and not just a dead body mistaken. Ah well. It wasn’t that important. And the scene where the dead wife is on the table at the inn and the man is mourning her and Louie comforts him, I love that!

I particularly love time pieces. Period pieces, what have you. I love thinking about men and women in historical costume. At inns. In carriages. Out and about. With most of their worldly concerns about death. I love books like that. I love anything like that. And this was a delightful experience.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

And of course Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Now let me just add that Sorcerer’s Stone is certainly least favorite of the bunch, seeing as it is the one that is the most simplistic of the series. Not that I dislike, it’s just that all of the others get increasingly better! Now rereading Chamber though made me quite happy. I love Tom Riddle. I’ll say it again, I love Tom Riddle. I think it’s very important that we get to see the young Voldemort, and a Voldemort that Harry even trusts for a few moments of his young life. I love that Tom has so many similarities to Harry, the dark-headed orphan youth who feels that Hogwarts is his only home, not to mention that they share powers due to adult Voldemort’s mishap. I remember reading the second book, of course before the movies had come out, and believing Tom just like Harry, and the dramatic reveal at the end that made me grin. Of course at the time it was also a little confusing. But thankfully, now that the series is done and I understand horcruxes, it all comes back together! I am proud of JK for figuring out her whole plot beforehand. Rereading it with the information I know now helps me see the things that she was building up all along. I applaud her for being so calculated in revealing the big issues and waiting til the end for it all to make sense. I did have to wonder a little bit about how Voldemort went about making the horcrux though. He says to Harry towards the end… “I killed the girl, Hagrid got expelled, I got a special award to the school, then I preserved my self in a diary.” So he wrote the diary quite a ways later from killing Myrtle. Since of course we know now to make a horcrux and split your soul you must kill someone, I suppose that must mean that you don’t have to have the horcux object immediately on hand when you kill someone. And that perhaps your soul is split and you can put it in the object at your own pace? That little piece of information had us talking when we finished the book then. Oh, and now I’m getting all Potter-nerd on this. Oh well. I’m not ashamed of dressing up in costumes to see the movies…on three separate occasions. Er well maybe a little bit. Or going to see the Harry and the Potters in concert four times…wait, five. Also in costume.

Yea.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

So let’s talk Harry Potter. Now of course I’ve read them before, each several years apart, and some so slowly it’s almost embarrassing, but hey, excuse me, understandable: I spent a whole six months getting through Deathly Hallows, my first and only time reading it so far. Stayed off of LiveJournal for months even though I was exposed to some basic spoilers. It wasn’t that I’m necessarily a slow or slacking reader, It’s that I wanted to make it last. That’s important to me. Ah well. The problem with that is of course, that you lose details along the way. And now, to make up for the fact that I didn’t feel like I have soaked in the experience properly, I am going back and reading each of the books quite methodically in order, a little bit every night, and out loud at that, to Nick (who has not read all of them). I am doing all the voices to an accurate degree: in British/Scottish/Irish/Cockney as the movies would have each character speak. It is…loads of fun. And being someone who enjoys projecting and getting into character it’s wonderful (hope it’s just as fun for the listener :D) Anyway, so of course they are being chronologically taken care of, and here we are talking about Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. While I haven’t read Deathly Hallows recently enough to say this for sure, but I am fairly certain that she has improved muchly since the first book. I find it interesting how often she performs the exact opposite of the “show, don’t tell” rule that we talk about so often in story concept class in animation. It is very important that you do not say what is about to happen before it happens. Though of course, as Nick argued back, it was a children’s book originally, meant for 11 year olds like Harry, and yes, fine, I can give it that. But compare that to the Hobbit, ha ha. That’s alright. I am quite glad that JK does not at all write like Tolkien, or I don’t know if I would have been able to get through seven of them! What I love about reading them, and why they are enjoyable to read out loud, is the fact that it is an easy literary experience, and quite comical at that. OH! Something I noticed that I never noticed before is how cartoonish her imagery is in these more light hearted earlier books! Several times there was very Warner Brothers like visuals. I quite remember that there was this scene that I believe occurred when Harry won the first Quidditch match…when he came to Gryffindor tower after the victory, he opened the portrait and a hand grabbed him and whipped him through the hole. Sounded very Looney Tunes like, and I remember more such cartoonish writing when they are facing fluffy and fighting the troll. Once the books get darker you see the humor start to wane. Not that the enjoyment does, in fact I find the books progressively more exciting, as anyone should. It’s just that you can very much see the series as a gradient from light to dark, through and through.

Frankenstein

First of all I have to say that this book really did give me a nightmare. Which is ridiculous, considering when I was reading it that I was thinking “ha, why did people back then think this was that scary?” considering how not new it is to us now, with all the horror movie that we have. I suppose back then it really must have been a new concept though. But anyway! Right after I had read that the monster was trying to force Victor to make a female, and Victor then tore the body apart after changing his mind, I dreamed that a funeral procession was walking down my street, with piece of body parts of three different recently dead people stuck together to make three different bodies that looked human enough to carry openly without a coffin through the street. And this dream terrified me, I didn’t go back to sleep after that. So I guess while I might not find this book necessarily terrifying, it definitely affected my subconscious. I have to say I was so surprised to find out that nearly none of the Hollywood imagery that we think about when we think of the name Frankenstein can be found in the original book. There wasn’t even a bringing to life scene, no electricity, no nothing (and I wonder if Shelley was merely saving herself the trouble of being told that the way she might have thought up would never work practically.) And I was also surprised that the monster talked! And quite eloquently I must say, though I seemed to doubt the validity of his ability to talk and read perfectly only after a few months of spying at a window. However! Despite that, I did enjoy the text and I am quite glad it contained nothing of the elements that we see in Hollywood which are quite cartoonish to us at this point. I was also looking forward to, and surprised not to find, a part I had seen in a Frankenstein play, where Victor as a young boy experiment on dead animals that he finds, I remember in the play he tries and fails to bring a dead collie to life as a child, and for some reason I was sure that that was actually in the book, that he worked his way up to bringing a human to life by experimenting on animals that he wanted to live again, as a child. So I was rather disappointed on finding no such part. But no matter! I did find this book a good read despite the nightmare, and to be a classic worthwhile of experiencing the original version.