WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?

Back again.

Finished Reaper Man a little while back - on Sunday, I think, but I've been too crazy busy to sit down and write about it before now. Sooo, Terry Pratchett's Reaper Man.
Discworld's anthropomorphised Death character is only my second favourite personification of Death - but only because of this book:
...which was a book that I feel completely in love with, because it's miraculously wonderful.

Terry Pratchett's Death is a sympathetic character, just as Marcus Zusak's Death is - and, in this book, that characteristic proves to be his undoing. The 'Auditors', mysterious beings who keep reality in order (hmmm, my brain just made an interesting connection - I watched an advanced screening of The Adjustment Bureau last night...) decide that Death is becoming too sympathetic and humanised for his occupation, so, while looking through his shelves of 'lifetimers', (hourglasses with people's names on them - showing how much life they have left to live) Death discovers a new lifetimer - his own. And he's running out of time. So Death leaves his office, abandons his job and finds a new one - as a farmhand - while he waits for his time to run out.
But, in the meantime, people who ought to be dying... aren't. Sort of. I didn't really understand how this part of the story worked, so much - and I didn't actually care, because Death's storyline was the part of the book that had my interest. The main character of this plot is Windle Poons, a 13o-year-old wizard who knows that he ought to be dead (because wizards always know) by a certain day, but, finding that he isn't, struggles trying to find out why and what he should do. There's a long and complex plot-thing involving snow globes, shopping trolleys and the birth of cities, but, to be quite frank with you, I had no idea what was going on.

This wasn't my favourite Discworld book at all, but it was enjoyable. I only understood and relished one of the plotlines, but it was a pretty good plotline. :-)

Does Not Happen

Ladies and gentlemen; Terry Pratchett!

Hi again.

I was wondering if I could be bothered writing this tonight - it's rather late, an' all - but it seems I am able, though you will have to excuse my poor writing. Spoily spoilers abound, so if you want to be able to read this book with an unspoiled mind, do so before you read the following.

I finished Terry Pratchett's Nation last night. It was an interesting book. Pratchett's normal oevre consists of books set in Discworld, which is a fascinating, tongue in cheek fantasy land (yes, the original covers put me off, too), populated by all kinds of creatures and characters. The Discworld novels are usually fairly light-hearted with a deep moral undercurrent, often incorporating themes like tolerance and racial acceptance.
This book is not set in Discworld. This book is not particuarly funny. It begins with a young boy, in the middle of a manhood initiation rite, being separated from his tribe, his 'Nation', by a tsunami, which kills the whole tribe, except him. Daphne, a young Victorian-ish (my understanding is that the book is set in an alternate reality) girl, is the only survivor of a ship wrecked on his island. The 'Adam & Eve' plotline you are expecting doesn't happen. At all. No more than a few flickerings of romance between the two: I found this more than a little annoying. Particularly because of the flickerings. The characters were very well written, particularly our main boy, Mau, whose heartbreak and personal crisis are completely believable and relatable - Daphne, having fewer reasons for heartbreak, is a lighter character, still well written, but a little less relatable, on account of being, well, less conflicted. I was not comfortable with the direction of this book on the whole: the biggest underlying theme, to my understanding, is the classic 'if God is (or, in this case, 'gods' are) real then why do bad things happen?' Nation handles the quiestion pretty well for its standpoint (which was, naturally, God/gods don't exist, and if they do they don't care), but I am still unhappy with the standpoint, which eventually undermines the actual enjoyability of the plot as a whole. I grew tired of the question and the constant back and forth long before the end, and I'm sure I wasn't the only reader to feel thus. And the epilogue made me so angry. Don't read the epilogue. Terry Pratchett's incredible standard of good writing was completely sunk by the awfulness of the unnecessary, patronising and disappointingly dull epilogue. This was a well written book (discounting said epilogue) and if it had only spent more time building up towards a satisfying ending and had left out the giant agnostic angst a little, I would recommend it.
Instead, I think you should go and read some Discworld stories: I haven't yet read them all (that will take a while!), but I heartily recommend the two Moist von Lipwig books and the novels about the Watch. Very good, very clever and very funny.

Having Fun Isn't Hard When You've Got A Library Card!

Hello evvybody!

Did a library crawl on Wednesday - well, not really a proper one, since I only went to two libraries, but you get the idea :-)
Here are the books I borrowed: let's see how many get finished before I pile on the overdue fines. Just keeping in mind that uni starts back in a few days!

Nation and Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

Friends, Lovers Chocolate (the second book in the Sunday Philosophy Club series - I didn't like the first one, but I'll give this a chance) and Morality for Beautiful Girls, the third book in No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series. (I read the first two a very, very long time ago.) Both by Alexander McCall Smith


The Corinthian by Georgette Heyer (for those days when a little light Regency romance is needed)


The Linguist and the Emperor by Daniel Meyerson (a book about the Rosetta Stone)

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta (because I couldn't find any of her other books and I'd love to see if good teen fiction exists anywhere!)

Greetings.

Just this morning I finished a book I got on my kindle called Dreaming Anastasia. I got it for free (for some reason, can't remember why. Promotion or something.) I don't read a lot of young adult fiction, for the simple reason that most of it is really, really, really bad. What is it about a young adult audience that attracts the worst writers with the most cliche ideas?
When push comes to shove I don't actually believe in writing for a specific audience that way: in my way of thinking, books are either good art or bad rubbish, with the occasional forgettable mediocrity thrown in for good measure. Winnie the Pooh is worth a read and a re-read, no matter the age of the reader, for the simple reason that it is good. I'm not saying that everyone's taste must be the same, but this is what classics are for! A classic is a book which has been preserved for posterity by a genuinely deserved popularity. Usually.
I remember reading an article in a magazine once by a person who was genuinely disgusted to find adults reading Harry Potter books. 'There are plenty of books written for adults' she asserted, smugly decrying the many people she knew of who had been seen reading a 'children's' series of books. Don't get me wrong, I haven't even READ Harry Potter! It could be Satanic propaganda, for all I know. But the argument of 'not your age group' really doesn't cut the mustard. This is another reason that gratituous sex, gore and obscenity really get my goat, especially in literature: if you want to write a classic (and, really, we should aim for the moon every time, I reckon!) don't fill it so full of filth that parents feel a need to shelter their children from it. Take a look at To Kill A Mockingbird. This truly classic novel deals with issues like racism, rape, prejudice and single parenting, but manages to do so with a full allowance of dignity and a refreshing lack of obscenity.
Sorry, where was I? Got completely caught up in a gigantic rant, there, in case you hadn't noticed. (I kid. You noticed.)
Back to Dreaming Anastasia. I didn't like this book. I didn't hate it either, if that makes things any better - which it doesn't. It was just so cliché! I mean, it was a (cliche!) OK idea: the young girl has mysterious connection to historical figure, only the girl can save said historical figure, mysterious magic and high jinks ensue! Buuut, because... well, just cuz, I guess, the entire plot turns into an awkward mutual crush romance... between an adolescent girl and a ridiculously good-looking, angsty, supernatural dude, who's cursed with immortality. Yep, you heard me. That's not familiar at all! (I haven't read Twilight either, actually, but it's surprising what popcultural osmosis can do to you.) And this ridiculously good-looking, flawless man-babe has the bluest blue eyes you ever did see. No, seriously, the blueness of his eyes is only mentioned about three hundred times.
There was no character development, bargeloads of boring exposition, random useless characters I forgot in between chapters, an unconvincingly 'ambiguous' witch, plotholes galore and an anticlimactic ending.
So... Dreaming Anastasia... not my favourite book.

Although, this ad makes it look pretty cool:

A bad book is the worse that it cannot repent

Hello.

Been inexcusably lazy with this blog lately - I have been reading books (cannot stop mineself!) but have not been taking note of them, because mostly I've been doing re-reads and single-sitting reads.
I downloaded a ton of gutenburg project ebooks (for anyone with a kindle: serious recommendation, right there. Project Gutenberg.) and decided that I'd start with the sequels to a book my mother read us when I and my siblings were wee babsies. The book was called The Five Little Peppers And How They Grew, and the concept is basically that of Little Women with younger children and a combination of boys and girls rather than the 'four sisters' format. The Pepper kids and their 'Mamsie' live in a beloved little brown house and are possibly a little worse off financially than the March family - because, at least in the sequels, they are seen as somewhat low in the social strata of the time. But they are unquenchably cheerful and not a little Mary Sue-ish, on the whole: the first book (insofar as I remember it...) was a nice little children's novel, about a warm little single parent family and their compulsory rich boy friend with wealthy father. So, since most old time sequels weren't too disgustingly bad, I thought I'd plunge into the several books that followed the first installation of 'Five Little Peppers'. I struggled through The Five Little Peppers Midway (surely Margaret Sidney could have diverged a little from the 'five little peppers' title without it harming the books too much?) but gave up halfway through The Five Little Peppers Abroad (it nearly killed me - I have to be very very bored by a book to give up on it.) I went on to The Five Little Peppers Grown Up.

I'm tempted to re-read the original book now, because I have really positive memories of it from my childhood. I don't remember the bizarre emotional manipulation used by all of the characters on each other; particularly the family manages Phronsie, the youngest, this way. Whenever Phronise begins to fuss about something (and little girls do, even Mary Sues) everyone shushes her by saying, "Don't Phronsie, don't, you'll make grandpa unwell." But the injunction to supress emotion suffuses the whole Peppers oeuvre:

"Study doesn't amount to much unless you are glad of the chance," said Mrs. Fisher sharply. "I wouldn't give a fig for it, being driven to it," and her lips curled scornfully.
Joel wilted miserably. "I do care for the chance," he cried; "just try me, and see."

I don't mind 'Mamsie' telling her son he ought to study when he has the chance - but the tone! Good grief!

Mr. King, who sort of adopts the family and takes them into his mansiony home, makes up for this generosity by being a selfish old bigot. Cannot see any likeability in this character. Nil. It's as though Margaret Sidney was trying to create a typical villain - only she went and put him where she should have put the jolly old grandfatherly benefactor.

If you really want to (and I would recommend it, just for 'what the heck?' value) you can here read the most bizarre and excruciating (successful) proposal of marriage in literature (start at the row of asterikses. Asteriksi?). It made me so angry to read. If someone proposed to me over my mother's lap I'd be all 'No! Go away and think up something more romantic and appropriate!'
Seriously, though, I only persevered with the series because I knew this scene would come (I'm a sucker for romantic story arcs) - and then! To be met with such a scene as this! Oh, this series makes me cross! I could go on about its awfulness all night, but I've had a long day. I'm tired. Good night.

In Defense of Catherine Morland and Northanger Abbey (I really would marry Henry Tilney)

I have just been reading quite a good book that I own called A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Reasons Why We Can't Stop Reading Jane Austen. It's a good book - consisting of a bunch of essays by a bunch of different people all on the topic of (duh) Jane Austen. (Although I feel rather humiliated when I re-read that and see 'duh' and 'Jane Austen' sharing a sentence. I'm so ashamed! It's late at night, OK!)
Although all these essays are written with different topics - some focus on Jane Austen's works as a whole, some on particular books, some on Jane Austen herself - you get the picture - I notice that none of these essay writers seem to like Catherine Morland (yes, her name is spelt with a 'C'. I too see this as a problem. But not that much of a problem.)
There aren't as many essays on the topic of Northanger Abbey itself, which disappoints me: it is my second favourite Austen novel. To be sure, the book is more of a gentle parody of Gothic fiction than it is pointed social comedy/drama (though, being Austen, these elements are not absent), but the book is well crafted and just as worthy of your attention as any other of Jane Austen's masterpieces.
Despite my awareness of Northanger Abbey's unpopularity I am shocked at the amount of dislike the innocent Miss Morland has acquired from her critics! Susan Carson, whose essay is entitled 'Reading Northanger Abbey' pronounces the romance between Henry Tilney and Catherine 'unconvincing' and even goes so far as to compare their union to that of Mr and Mrs Bennet. Carson's reasoning behind her deduction goes along this path: Mr. Bennet and Henry are both very intelligent men who marry women who assuredly do not traverse the same intellectual plane as they do - and Carson proposes that Tilney's marriage must end up as Mr. Bennet's does, with partners so incompatible that all they can do is mock and irritate one another. What she does, in my manner of thinking, is underestimate the young (but not irredeemable) Mrs. Tilney and the affection she is capable of inspiring in a man who understands her properly.
If Henry were Mr. Knightley (of Emma), his stern scoldings would be too much for Catherine, whose foolishness is not of the selfish, unthoughtful kind, as Emma's is: Henry's rebuke, though honest, is sensitive. Rather than saying 'I cannot see you acting wrong without remonstrance,' as Knightley does, Tilney addresses Catherine thus: 'Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?' Of course, both the ladies react with shame and an internal crisis of character, but both gentlemen are speaking from an earnest desire to set their lady straight on an important matter - and each does so in a manner appropriate to the lady of his choice.
Catherine may not be Henry's match in a playful verbal sparring match - but I don't think many shy, unworldy seventeen-year-olds could be. And I don't think Henry would particularly like her to be: he lightly enjoys teasing her and making her think harder, without desiring much more except her company. Perhaps a conversation between Elizabeth Bennet and Henry Tilney would make good reading - their wit is of a similar variety - but I don't think they could be happily married to one another. Jane Austen knew a good match when she wrote one: and she wrote several very good ones. Elizabeth's wit attracts Darcy and draws him out of his shell - Tilney's wit does the same for Catherine. And what a critic may overlook (particulary a critic who is able to draw paralells between Catherine and Mrs. Bennet) is that, though she is short of worldly knowledge and intellectual experience, Catherine Morland has a sound moral centre that keeps her stablewhen thrown into a new environment of inconstant friends and selfish snobs, as well as an emotional honesty that, though subject to her frivolous and over-credulous imagination, proves to be her most endearing trait. Her instinct about John Thorpe's untrustworthiness and coarse behaviour proves correct - and though her imagination plays her false in the case of Henry's father, her emotional judgement of him as a selfish and tyrannical man proves to be sound and well-founded. Unlike Mrs. Bennet, Catherine is not attention seeking or self aggrandising; she does not favour people for their wealth but rather for their worth, and her affection and admiration for Tilney ring true.
If there were truly a Henry Tilney and a Catherine Morland, I think that they would, indeed, love each other honestly.

"But your mind is warped by an innate principle of general integrity, and therefore not accessible to the cool reasonings of family partiality, or a desire of revenge."

Now, I need only decide which to re-read: a work of Jane Austen, a Bronte book or Gone With The Wind...

This was brought to you by Vanilla Superior Black Tea, keeping me awake when I should be asleep.

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.

Back again...

So, recent reading.

I've been away lately with my family - only just returned. This time I only took a few books with me and *trumpet blast* my kindle! Which is fantastic in terms of lightweight luggage, but not so brillliant considering I only have about 15 books on it at present, and those are free classics from google books and the book depository. So, of those I have been reading a great deal of G. K. Chesterton and a little J. M. Barrie. Chesterton wrote a ton of detective stories, plays, newspaper articles, Christian apologetics - but besides all this he wrote a ton of essays. 4000 essays. Seriously.
So of the two books of his that I finished, one was a book of essays. I don't agree with everything Chesterton says all of the time - I mean, for example, he wasn't in favour of female suffrage because none of the women he knew wanted it... whenever I hear that argument I just want to scream at the person, 'Dude! You need to get out more!' Like young artists who say they don't know anyone who isn't in favour of gay marriage. I mean, I'm not saying you have to change your opinion, folks, but please, please, be a bit more broadminded. The fact that you don't know anyone who has a different opinion doesn't mean yours is the only one - it does mean that you're limiting your experience of people to those that are just like you - and that's unhealthy.

Back to Chesterton. The man was a genius. Even when I don't agree with him (and I rarely disagree with him) his mastery of words and ideas nearly convinces me in spite of myself. Pure genius. And he had a fantastic sense of humour, which interweaves everything he writes. I can't really give you an idea of everything I read of his, so I can't critique it properly - the subjects ranged from politics to gender roles to economics to culture - without breaking stride. Go, find one of his books, and read it. I actually prefer the essays and apologetics to the fiction.


I haven't yet finished reading The Little White Bird by J. M. Barrie, but I am fascinated by it. I almost would like to hand it to a trained psycologist and get them to analyse Barrie's deepest darkest mind. If you've read any biographical material about Barrie, you'll understand.
That besides, it's quite a charming book, once you get used to the odd, sarcastic, introspective viewpoint of the narrator. The story is from the perspective of a middle-aged man who covertly watches a young woman go through the stages of courtship, marriage and motherhood, before becoming non-anonymously a part of her life through a friendship with her little son. It's strange. I'll have to read the rest before I can form a full opinion.


I'm also re-reading The Light Princess by George Macdonald, which is a beautiful 'light'-hearted but deep-souled fable. If you ever see a copy at the library or a bookshop, snag it for yourself and read it. Only 110 pages, but totally worth it. I have the Maurice Sendak illustrated paperback - but if you want an ebook here it is.