I admit that in my literary tastes, I am vaguely stuck in my ways. I should admit right now that I am just not a non-fiction gal, especially when it comes to autobiographies. It’s not that I’m uninterested in other people’s lives. As a matter of fact most of the autobiographies that have been pressed on me over the years have been very good. However, I always find it vaguely depressing to  find myself staring at rows upon rows of them in a bookshop, knowing that 90% were ghost written due to the fact that the subject was lacking in a) the talent to tell their story themselves or b) anything of value to say. What I’m saying is that a 20 year old pop star should not feel that they should be afforded the same respect involved in the “telling of their story” as say, Nelson Mandella.

Blogs are more to my autobiographical taste; small, honest accounts from day to day living. Blogs have somewhat spoiled me for other forms of memoir writing due to the ocean of writing talent out there in cyberspace. I read at least 6 blogs who’s authors are more qualified to be published that those of some of the bland, forgettable literature that’s graced my reading palette recently.

Before I left the States, my mother gifted me her copy of “Mennonite in a Little Black Dress” by Rhonda Janzen. I’d seen the write up of the book on the NPR website some time back, but was waiting for the paperback before purchasing. Having often described myself as a “Mennonite by Association”, (even since my slide into agnosticism) I was interested to hear what Janzen had to say about the religious sub-culture that played such a large role in my young adult life.

I have trouble writing coherent book reviews when I have mixed feelings about a piece of work; Partly, I suppose, of my longing not to be needlessly critical of something that, on some levels, I kind of enjoyed,  but at the same time feeling the need to express the wrongness that I felt pervaded the text.

I suppose my largest beef with Janzen’s memoir was that it didn’t really offer up any surprise insight into Mennonite or Anabaptist culture, making the title vaguely misleading. (Certainly, she is not the first to have grown up in a conservative religious culture who made her break from them into the world of “reason” and academia only to return with a personal life in ruins.) After a year in the life of Job during which she suffered complications as a result of a botched hysterectomy, a devastating car accident and the breakdown of her already extremely broken marriage when her un-medicated, unstable, bipolar, bisexual husband leaves her for a man he met on the internet, Janzen promises a heartwarming story of a return to her roots.

Only, this story never seemed to materialize. What followed seemed to be a teasing and often sarky indictment of her conservative roots as well as seemingly good natured (but not quite) portraits of her family.

Janzen’s writing style is compared over and over in reviews to the late Norah Ephron’s, which I didn’t find to be the case. Ephron, although a mistress of satire, was gentle to her subjects, showing a deep undercurrent of abiding affections. Janzen is often biting. To soften some of the often sharp humour with which she brings to light her family’s traditions and foibles, I think I would have like to have seen Janzen more fully acknowledge the debt of care that she owed to her parents and the Mennonite community in general during her healing process, as she spends a lot of the memoir coming across as an ungrateful and bemused observer to the whole situation. My experiences both during college and after with Mennonites left me profoundly grateful for their welcome and hospitality. It is to these experiences I turn again and again when confronted with yet another assault upon my faith in the goodness of other people. I was surprised that Janzen excluded much of this oft remarked upon Mennonite trait in her observations.

Upon moving to Minneapolis soon after college, my roommate, the Reverend Doctor and I quickly became acquainted with the local Mennonite congregation. (Of course, this was only after an obligatory visit by the local Lutherans 3 days after we moved in. It was like, “How did you guys know we were HERE?”) It was only a matter of 2 visits before we were asked by a friendly couple what our plans were for Thanksgiving. (Food poisoning, if we were honest about the chances of either the Reverend Doctor or myself at the time preparing anything that REALLY REALLY had to be heated to a certain temperature.) When we said we weren’t sure, there was no question that we had to spend it with their family. So, on Thanksgiving Day, two post-college young adults who both missed their families back home spent the day with hugely welcoming strangers. Although the name of the family escapes me now, it still serves as a tremendous object lesson into the nature of goodness.

In the same vein, I feel that I owe a great debt of care to the family of The Reverend Doctor, during my time at college for the many meals I consumed under their roof, the assistance that they offered in many matters of my own making and also, especially for a cat that was unceremoniously dumped on them due to the fact that the Reverend Doctor and I were slightly deluded about our chances of finding somewhere to live that we could house said creature. So, to them, my humble apologies and my grateful thanks. Sorry about all of the hair.

My own Mennonite experience differed wildly from Janzen’s. Her constant references to the dourness of the tradition were puzzling, as I never got that impression from either my PA Dutch Mennonite relatives or those that I met at Goshen College. The Mennonites I know are all about a good time. A bountifully laid table. Singing. Playing games with such vigor that bones get broken. Getting naked. (Well, that was probably just Mennonite college students. Or maybe just because it was the midwest and everyone’s gotta make their own fun.) Although I skipped enough of my weekly chapel requirements to necessitate taking an extra class at the end of my college career to make up for it, (during which I wrote a 20 page paper in defense of pornography. So, no chapel PLUS I got to look at porn for a month straight. WIN.) you’d better believe that my butt would always be firmly attached to a pew on days when there was a hymn sing, lead by the college’s rather eminent choir master. Attendance in chapel on those days was at an all time high, often with students standing in the back, sharing 3 to a hymnal. A tradition who’s youth take so much joy in 4 part harmony, acapella singing is anything but dour. One of my favorite musical memories is singing the much beloved Hymn 606 with fellow theatre folk on a hotel balcony in Green Bay, Wisconsin and receiving an appreciative round of applause from the bar and the lobby 7 floors below.

I acknowledge that the conservatism that Janzen harks back to at numerous points in her narrative might be more recognizable to those who grew up in a strong Mennonite tradition, which I did not. Although my mother attended a Brethren Church (another close Anabaptist relation to the Mennonites) I personally spent most of my youth in a large, mostly liberal urban Methodist congregation where I participated heavily in the youth group. Among the board games in the basement where we met there was a Ouija board, who’s presence was never remarked upon as being ironic in the slightest.

It often amazes me that I could once summon it in myself to be offended by the some of the conservatism of the college which I willingly attended. What was it that I expected, exactly? While Janzen had no desire to maintain ties with a faith tradition that she repeatedly bumped her head up against, I WANTED to maintain ties to this community that at one time nourished me in many ways. But I wanted it on MY TERMS. This, of course is the arrogance that can only be maintained by the idealism of youth. I remember attending a wedding at the rather conservative Mennonite church of one of the branches of the Reverend Doctor’s family during which the pastor inexplicably threw in an earnest condemnation of homosexuality. At the time, I remember that my youthful “justice” hackles were well and truly raised, but with more time and experience under my belt, I feel it MORE begs the question “Do you really need to condemn the practice of homosexuality so strongly during a wedding ceremony? Of, you know, two straight people?” (Perhaps just to get across the point that, “No matter how bad the marriage goes, guys, THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR GOING TEH GHEY, OKAY?”)

Janzen spends a little time in the dying chapters of the book giving the reader a rather confusing, bare bones account of the Mennonite’s experiences in Russia during the time of Catherine the Great. While this is all well and good, it might have behooved her readers if this chapter had been closer to the beginning and had been more of an “Anabaptists for Dummies” primer which would helped in the understanding of Mennonite origins. It would have suited her writing style perfectly, so left me wondering why she didn’t do it and rather spent more time on telling her readers what Mennonites are NOT rather than what they ARE.

I feel like there are a million more observations I could make regarding “Mennonite in a Little Black Dress” and my own experiences with Mennonite culture, but it seems to me that a book review should not have more to say than the book itself, so I shall have to content myself to conclude that it was spiky when it should have been sentimental, bitter when it should have been kind and repetitive when it should have been surprising. The warmth of the tradition that undertakes service in both their communities and the world at large not to prostheletise, but from a deep commitment to social justice and the exhortation of Christ that “whatsoever you do to the least of these my brethren, you do also unto me.” is worth more than the one liners that Janzen often confines it to

These last few months have been quite a trial physically.

When I was pregnant with Wren, I feel I got off quite easily. No major morning sickness or drama of any description. But, as you already know, this current pregnancy has already been fraught with more drama that humanly necessary. And we’re only 13 weeks in. I’ve pretty much spent the last 3 months sequestered in the house, wishing that I thought that actually throwing up might be the solution to my problems. (Seriously, folks, I would rather be forced to listen to right wing radio than throw up, but if I genuinely thought I’d feel better afterward, I’d consider it. But morning sickness, sadly, is not like having consumed a six pack of Woodchuck Cider.) So, with little else to do, I’ve been plowing through as much fiction as my little brain can absorb. In case anyone’s interested, here’s what’s been keeping me occupied.

I’m just talking here, by the way, so I can’t promise that I won’t reveal plot elements of these books, but I’ll try to steer away from outright spoilers.

The Kingdom Beneath the Waves and Rise of the Iron Moon by Steven Hunt: When we went to the States in May, I discovered a book that I’d actually brought with me to read during our CHRISTMAS visit 5 months earlier called The Court of the Air, which is Steven Hunt’s first novel of the fictional country of Jackals (based largely on England) and the world that it inhabits. This was my first introduction to the “steampunk” genre (Wikipedia describes the genre thus: “The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy.”) and after having finished it with some satisfaction, I embarked upon the second and third of his Jackelian series. While the first tome was slightly heavier with a good deal of mysticism and pseudo religion, the second two of the series read like bloody good adventure serials, with a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter, especially Kingdom Beneath the Waves, which focuses on a group of hearty adventurers who race to find a dangerous artifact in an even more dangerous country.

Hunt has obviously fleshed out his universe well, from the religious practices of the peaceful “Steam Men” of nearby Mechania (living machines ruled by an immortal king and subject to the whims of their mechanical gods, the Loas) to the horrors of revolutionary Quartershaft. (Jackals neighbor, obviously France, but taken slightly more in the direction of a particularly nasty breed of communism) All three books tie together a number of familiar characters, so while the plots of the three books vary, the reader definitely feels like he’s following an overarching story. Good fun, all three of thee books.

THUD! by Terry Pratchett- I read Pratchett when I’m between books, usually. Having gone through most of his catalogue, reading a Discworld novel is a bit like ordering the same thing every time you go to the Indian restaurant. You’re not quite sure of what’s new out there, so it’s much easier just to order a chicken korma. Something easy and predictable to digest.

The witches are my favorite of the Discworld cannon, but I have to admit to not having spent much time on the books relating to the Watch. (I think I’ve met a lot of old women over here that remind me of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, so I have a bit of a soft spot.) This Watch novel focuses on the always vigilant and honorable Watch Commander, Same Vimes, who’s in a race against time to stop what amounts to a race war kicking off in Ahnk Morpork between dwarves and trolls after a leading dwarf figure is murdered and all of the signs point to a troll killer. Pratchett, as always, draws parallels between the Disc and modern day concerns: religious fanaticism, racism and how one relatively small group of crazies can manage to keep the healing balm of truth from the masses.

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker: I remember seeing this reviewed quite a long time ago in the book review in the Independent and it sat patiently on my Amazon wish list (which I also use as a reading list) until the paperback came into print a few months back.

A sweet and satisfying story of a girl called Truly, who’s gargantuan frame, even at birth, influences the path that her life is to take. It follows her as she navigates her way through childhood and adulthood in a sometimes cruel small town, discovering secrets, making friends and finally coming into her own. I hugely enjoyed it and would not hesitate to recommend it.

The Affinity Bridge by George Mann: My steampunk jag continued to one volume of George Mann’s Newbury & Hobbes Investigations. It didn’t take long to feel as though I’d jumped in in the middle of a story in progress, but from what I can gather, The Affinity Bridge is the first in the series.

Perhaps it’s that the steampunk genre was starting to lose it’s lustre by the time I got to this book or perhaps the writing just left me cold, but Mann’s tale of a transformed London, a brilliant investigator with a drug habit and his equally brilliant female protege didn’t quite work for me. Sherlock Holmes meets I, Robot meets Mad Max down a dark alley. I don’t think I’ll be delving any further into these chronicles.

The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters and The Dark Volume by GW Dahlquist- Recommended by Amazon due to my purchases of Steven Hunt’s novels, these two steampunk novels kept me busy for some time. Both were long and complex, but still held a lot of the action/adventure serial feel that Hunt’s novels did, but on a slightly larger and more baffling scale. The books tell the tale of 3 separate individuals who are, through varying circumstances, drawn into a vast conspiracy to take over the world through the power of a mysterious blue glass. I did, however, have several bones to pick.

Fight sequences in movies are often unnecessarily long and boring. Doubly so for a book. I have to admit to having skimmed several sections until coming to the end of these epic sequences, making a note of the winner and going on my merry way.

There are really only so many times that one can escape from certain death without a tedious predictability creeping in. Seriously, folks, you just stop caring after a while.

GW Dahlquist is a bit of a doofus in real life. I only discovered this AFTER having finished The Dark Volume, however, and this knowledge did not color my reading in any way. Dahlquist is the only individual to bring a private prosecution against NASA for allegedly faking material brought back from the moon (he claimed - unsuccessfully - that several pounds of ‘moon rocks’ had been lifted from his backyard in Tampa, Florida). It should come as no surprise after that tidbit that he is also a moon landing denier. Hey, I’m one who believes that everyone is entitled to their opinion as long as they don’t expect me to believe it too and don’t scream about it in public like a nutjob, but I think the old axiom that “the only way that two people can keep a secret is if one of them is dead” is enough for me to believe that it is more feasible that we actually WENT to the moon than that a SHITLOAD of people lied about it and no one found out.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman- One of two books sent to me by my friend Roscoe, who wanted to keep me happy and entertained while I felt miserable. I’ve had some small experience with Gaiman before, but it’s always been hit and miss. While Good Omens remains one of my favorite books of all time, I didn’t get on with American Gods. However, this  delightful fantasy was very engaging. Gaiman introduces us to the idea of the “London Beneath”, a place where the disenfranchised find themselves thrust into the bizarre under/beside city that exists alongside our own world and need to fight to navigate the dangers of a hostile world. A world where there IS an Earl of Earl’s Court and that the infamous “Gap” that needs minding in the underground is all too real. A good, old fashioned fantasy novel that was over far too quickly.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield- Roscoe warned me that this book was not only compulsive reading but had a denouement that she just didn’t see coming. She was entirely right on both counts.

I’m glad it was recommended to me, because the cover portrays it to be something of your basic chick lit, family- with- a- terrible- secret type book and I know that I never would have picked it up based on it’s description. But Setterfield is terrific with words and her prose, in places, is just divine.

Out of the blue, Margaret Lea is asked by one of the world’s leading novelists, known for her enigmatic life, to finally write her true biography. Lea is sucked deep into the story of Vida Winter’s life (as is the reader) and all the while we learn more about Margaret’s private, but remarkably parallel tragedy. And Roscoe was right. I totally didn’t see it coming.

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown: Okay, yeah, you caught me.

Reading Dan Brown is a little like having a very large bag of Cheetos. You keep telling yourself you’re going to stop and close the bag in a minute, but a few hours later, you suddenly discover that you’ve got an empty bag, orange residue all over your fingers and a deep sense of personal shame. There are a lot of things that bug me about Brown (not the least of which is his hugely expositional “Look! I know how to use Wikipedia!” style of explaining complex concepts to the reader) but the biggest is that his books ALL read like screenplay novelisations. Why he didn’t just go into scriptwriting in the first place, I’m not entirely sure.

In The Lost Symbol, our intrepid hero, brilliant Harvard symbolist and mild mannered nice guy Robert Langdon is once again pulled into a web of codes and symbols and getting chased all over creation by all manner of people when all he really did wrong was get out of bed that morning. Solving puzzles that have baffled the ancients since the beginning of time mere SECONDS from imminent catastrophe, Landon goes on a whirlwind tour of Masonic DC and escapes the clutches of any number of devious foes to save an old friend and stop a madman. Sound familiar? Sigh.

However.

As much as I would like to say that I didn’t like this book, I actually did. Perhaps the subject matter, being slightly more secular, struck me as slightly more interesting. Nor did Brown engage in any blatant “OMG, TEH MASONS R TOTALLY MISTICAL, K?” chatter that might lead people to storm masonic temples looking for the secret of the universe like they formerly overran the tiny Rosselin Chapel in Scotland searching for the location of the Holy Grail. The book has a far more humanist angle that tied together Masonic beliefs with the Noetic science: research into the potential of the human mind and furthering human capacities in general. Perhaps Brown’s usually exposition (in the form of Langdon delivering a concise lecture for nearly  3 pages while being chased by the police) didn’t bug me as much because some of it was quite fascinating. Of course, I plan to do my OWN reading on the science of Noetics to separate fact from artistic BS.

It was 7 quid. Worth about 6.50, so if you can  get it for less than a fiver, you’ll definitely get your money’s worth.

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So, what next on the Potalist? Well, I indulged my trashy fiction side (I know, I just read Dan Brown, but I PROMISE I’ll read an Austin next without having someone threaten to stick a fork in my hand or ANYTHING!) and got Dead Until Dark by Charlene Harris which is the basis for HBO’s “True Blood” series. The Rock Star and I got shamefully addicted to it, so when I finish this one, I’ll have to wait til I’ve seen series 2 before reading the next book. (Yes, I’d rather watch a silly vampire show than read a silly vampire book. And I REALLY don’t even want to talk about “Twilight”.) After my little vampire treat, I’m not sure where to go literarily, as it were, so any suggestions are much appreciated!

Despite my current schedule of insanity, you might be forgiven for believing that I have forsaken my beloved books. Au contraire, internets, I still manage to get a little page time in the 30 minutes or so between when I tell the Rock Star that he REALLY needs to put down his guitar and when he actually manages to collapse onto the mattress.

Lucky for me, my last literary conquest has conveniently been turned into a movie that has moistened panties all over the US over the weekend, so I figured it would be a fairly good segue into a review of sorts.

So yeah, I’m 33 and I just finshed the final book in the Twilight series. Give me a break. I spend all day trying to brush yoghurt out of a 20 month old’s hair, so I can hardly be blamed for wanting an escape in the form of some hot vegetarian vampire action. However, my official reason is that I want to keep up with children’s and young adult fiction in case of future employment in a bookshop of some description. Yeah. That’s the reason.

First off, let me just say that I’m having some trouble getting next to screaming, hair-pulling frenzy of lust that other people seemed to have developed for this series. In fact, I think the highest compliment I can pay it (as my dear friend Roscoe put it) is that it was entertaining. Entertaining in the same way that putting on Die Hard, drinking wine and eating microwave popcorn is entertaining. It’s not something I had to think about while reading; I just had to let my mind go fuzzy and get taken for a ride.

Truth to be told, I rather resented the books at first in the same way that I resented the DaVinci Code; for drawing me along despite the fact that the author was obviously not up to the job.

“This writing is bad.” I told the Popcorn Gland.

“Shut up. Story’s happening.” munched the Popcorn Gland, eyes riveted to the action.

“No, seriously, this is pretty putrid.” I persisted. “This is what Anne Rice would have written before she hit puberty.”

“Can’t talk. Watching.” the Gland shot back.

So I sighed and went to buy the three remaining books in the series under heavy protest while the Popcorn Gland went to open another bottle of Pino Noir.

For the precisely 3 people who’ve no idea what all this Twilight nonsense is all about, the books chronicle the relationship between Bella Swan and a vampire called Edward Cullen, who, thankfully for Bella, has forsworn drinking human blood along with his extended “vegetarian” family in favor of some bare handed big game hunting. Of course, you don’t get a vampire/human love affair without a fair amount of supernatural shit hitting the fan in the form of other hostile vampires as well as a love rival who just happens to be a werewolf. And that pretty much covers 4 books worth.

Having established that the story is quite compelling, I would like to just say a few things about, well, everything else.

One of my biggest bones to pick with the series straight off the bat would be the incredibly little insight that the author has to offer into WHY Bella and Edward fall in love. One minute, she’s looking across the lunchroom at this god-like boy and the next, they’re making promises to eachother that wouldn’t sound out of place in a ballad by Bon Jovi. Unfortunately, there is very little in between. Having once been a teenager myownself, I know how easy it was to develop life-threatening crushes on pretty boys, but I also know that it was a long leap from “oo, he’s a bit of alright.” to “you know, the fact that you could snap me like a twig and suck my juices really doesn’t factor into the all-consuming passion that I feel.” Roscoe was also rather right in her observation that because of the intended audience, the author wasn’t fully able to explore the inherant sexuality in the books. “It’s TOTALLY about sex, but since it’s a novel for teens, you can’t just come out and say that it’s a classic dom/sub story.” she said. This seemed to leave gaping holes in the narrative that couldn’t be overlooked.

And please don’t even get me started on 4th book in the installment, Breaking Dawn, or more aptly named, Oh, By The Way, I Figured Out How This Book Would End Before Figuring Out How To Tie Up Plot Holes That You Could Drive a Truck Through, So I Just Now Made A Bunch of Shit Up. (SPOILER- for some extra fun, read the reviews of Breaking Dawn on Amazon and count how many people were outraged by the teen pregnancy storyline. Excuse me, did I just hear y’all trying to apply morality to a STORY ABOUT VAMPIRES AND WEREWOLVES?)

One might come away thinking that I would not recommend the Twilight series to other readers, but one would be wrong.

Feed your popcorn gland.

I normally don’t undertake literary rants for fear of sounding like a total prat, but it’s occurred to me recently that I care far less about sounding like a prat than I used to.

Trumpet, my virtual sister-in-law and I exchange books a lot. We’ve both done our time in the book trade, (although I was simple a lowly information desk monkey and she was running a major shop. If she had been my manager, she probably would have kicked my ass.) so we both have an abiding love of literature. Our tastes are usually fairly similar, although she has on occasion complained that the books I recommend to her are “weird” to start out with, but she usually enjoys them by the end. (I’m a bit of a Christopher Moore fan, so the book about sentient dolphins waving their wedding tackle at people was the final straw for her) To make up for my odd choices, she insisted that I tackle The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov’s scathing satire of life under a groaning Russian bureaucracy in 1930’s Moscow.

I’m not going to knock Russian literature out of hand, although you could beat a horse to death with Anna Karinina. (which I actually really enjoyed, by the way, but there’s a lot of room in 800 pages for angst.) Nor am I going to knock surrealism, although it’s just not my thing. (This is probably why I can’t deal with animae. A world where a small girl and a rabbit are standing in a forest waiting for a 12 legged cat-bus is not one that I want to inhabit.) What I would like to take to task is the automatic assumption that those of an intensely literary bent have that this is a masterpiece. I was pleased to see that among all of the glowing comments under the listing on Amazon, there was one lone voice who dared say, “What IS it with this book, anyway?”

Which is pretty much the question that I asked myself every night as I marked my place and closed the cover. The Rock Star, I imagine, is also pleased that I’ve finished this ponderous, bizarre piece of fiction so that he can stop hearing about how much I wanted to be finished with it every night before we go to sleep.

“Why don’t you just stop reading it?” he asked, distracted from his autobiography of Slash.

“Because I CAN’T. Trumpet said I HAD to read it.” I tend to blindly stick to promises, no matter how much they make me want to die.

Besides my promise to Trumpet, once half-way through, I kept waiting to see what all of the agony was leading to. I expected a revelation; some kind of Owen Meany-esque “oh my god, that’s what this whole novel has been building towards” moment. But instead, I was assailed with the mischievous doings of the devil (who apparently takes great pleasure in making sure that people end up in public in their underwear. To me, this is not the mark of the Prince of Darkness, but rather, an unruly stag party.) and his band of miscreants as they descend on the city of Moscow to bring down the system and to exploit the greed of the newly moneyed classes.

While this novel had all the hallmarks of a literary spooge-fest (the dichotomy between good and evil, themes of salvation and redemption and of course the blistering indictment of a society rotted from the inside out by a complicated system of rules and regulations that brings out the worst in its citizens.) after having slogged through it’s canyons of oddity, I’m left wondering if SURELY there must be other books that make this same point better? My main question: why is this such a famous book?

It seems that an untimely end can ultimately increase booksales as well as rocket you into the ranks of the literati. Bulgakov died in 1940 and The Master and Margarita wasn’t published until 1966, during the middle of the international frostiness known as the Cold War. Perhaps this glimpse into the intricacies of Communism put a human face on the Red Menace, catapulting this incredibly odd novel into public consciousness.

My mother, who travelled to the Soviet Union roughly 6 months before the whole thing came crashing down, met a man who taught English and gave her a rather telling description of Communism:

“In America, if your neighbor gets a new car, you think, “What can I do so that I also might have a new car?” and you work harder. In Russia, if your neighbor gets a new car, you set fire to it in the middle of the night.”

It was this depressingly bleak social outlook that Bulgakov meant to satirize in “Master” and in that sense, he probably did a fairly decent job. (Seeing that the first draft of the book was censored by authorities. If someone’s trying to shut you up, you must have something worth saying.) It was simply the utter surrealist nature of the novel that was off-putting in my opinion. I am a huge fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who’s work is liberally sprinkled with magical realism, but none of his novels have ever wanted to make me slap myself repeatedly in the head.

Trumpet told me before I started on this project that she’s often thought of this novel in the years since she’s read it.

I imagine that I will too. But for totally different reasons.

A few weeks ago, I offered to Urban Cowgirl a piece of wisdom that I’ve gleaned from many years as a rabid bibliophile: “Life is too short for bad books.” You’d think, after uttering a statement filled to the brim with self-righteous pomposity, that I’d be inclined to follow my own advice. You would be wrong.

After the incredible and quite frankly baffling success of The DaVinci Code, a legion of copycats have sprung up, featuring nubile academics in a desperate race against time and villainy to uncover an ancient and explosive secret. The majority of my bile against Dan Brown stems from the fact that he forced me to read on to find out WHAT HAPPENED NEXT. The man forced me through his utterly mangled, clichéd, 12- year- old- history- buff- with- a- hard- on- desperate- to- get- the- film- made narrative in order to get to the end and find out just where in the hell all of this Jesus/Mary Magdalene booty call action was going. Damn him to the cabanas on the shores of Lake Cocytus for that.

While writers such as Kate Mosse have actually managed to improve upon this genre with the addition of historical fiction, (this did not, however, go any further toward me finishing “Labyrinth”; I got bored) JL Carrell has written an embarrassing re-hash of what is obviously her doctorate thesis and shoved it awkwardly into Dan Brown’s mold. “The Shakespeare Secret” follows roughly 3 other books that have come out in the space of a year that explore the life of The Sweetest Swan of Avon. I must confess to having read another of these books (which also cost roughly £3.50 from Tescos) entitled “The Book of Air and Shadows”, however the writing was so far superior to Carrell’s, I think I can be forgiven. The mystery surrounding Shakespeare’s life and authorship makes a worthy successor to the search for the Holy Grail due to the eminence and global reach of his work.

Carrell’s central premise lies in the academic spank-fest that is the Authorship Question. In one corner, the Stratfordians, champions of our man Willy Waggledagger, who believe wholeheartedly that Shakespeare was indeed the author of his own plays. In the other corner, the Oxfordians, who believe that Shakespeare merely took credit for the work of the Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who, as a member of the Elizabethan and Jacobean aristocracy, couldn’t be seen to be doing something so base as expressing creativity. He had people for that. (Shakespeare, for example)* In fact, there are several other candidates for authorship including the remotely possible (Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe) to the downright improbable. (Elizabeth I, Elvis, Lord Xenu, etc.) Of course, combine this mystery with a sexy, red headed academic, a broodingly handsome body man, the eccentric rich Englishman who is OBVIOUSLY THE FUCKING BAD GUY but that you have to watch lead the heroine down the primrose path for the whole novel until he is *GASP* unmasked as the villain and a breakneck race across two continents and you have yourself a kind of shoddy literary ballgame.

The thing that bothered me most about the book was not it’s poor execution, nor the obvious, silent plea from the author to PLEASELOOKATMEANDHOWMUCHRESEARCHIDID, PLEEEEEEESE! but rather the fact that she didn’t even bother to conceal the fact that she was desperately angling for a film deal. No one utters dramatic Shakespearian verse before hurling themselves into a canyon in full view of a police helicopter during a thunder storm IN BOOKS. NO ONE. We all know where that sort of shit happens. Reading it was like watching the world’s longest trailer; I felt like I needed popcorn.

Hollywood seems to have lost it’s original idea mojo long ago and has spent a tremendous amount of time and effort over the last few years in adapting novels for the screen. We HAVE movies. Do we really need books that read like films before they’ve even been adapted? Have we really lost our capacity to deal with a literary plot that does NOT involve car chases, prim, yet sexy academics and elaborately staged serial killings?

So, why did I read this great heap of wordy dung when it became apparent within the first chapter what manner of fiction it was?

I wanted to find out what happened. What I should have done was simply go to the Wikipedia page regarding the Shakespeare Authorship question, spent 5 minutes gleaning the information I didn’t already know, and then gone on to “McCarthy’s Bar”, which has been next in the pile of books at my bedside. But no, I spent far too many nights reading and projecting visible waves of hate across the Atlantic at the author, who was making me miss out on better books because I wanted to know if Kate and Ben would eventually find the lost play “Cardenio” in an abandoned Arizona gold mine.

I am such a tool.

*Just in the interest of full disclosure, I like to think that great genius doesn’t necessarily require great education and hope that Shakespeare WAS the author of his plays. Shakespeare has a vague New Testament Jesus problem; a lot of time between his childhood and manhood that’s kind of a blank. I like to think that he might have learned a thing or two while off the radar. That said, the work speaks for itself and whoever wrote the words gave an enormous gift to the English language, whether it was Shakespeare, Oxford, Bacon or Marlowe. Sonnet 55 says it best:

Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this pow’rful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time.

Velocibadger girl tagged me for this intreguingly titled meme. I have to admit that I’ve actually struggled to think of 10 male characters that are entirely to my taste, so have included some females as well. (Girls are sexy. While I’m quite heterosexually inclined, I can definitely see where lesbians are coming from.) I’ve also included some characters from children’s books, so be warned. Nothing funny, but fairy tales are full of handsome heroes.

In no particular order…..

10. The Invisible Being from “The Rough Faced Girl”, an Algonquin cinderella story. You can’t see him unless you appreciate the world around you. His bow is the rainbow, the runner of his sled is the Great Milky Way. Plus, he’s got the biggest wigwam in town.

9. Crowley, the demon from “Good Omens”. Ever since reading the book, I’ve been mentally casting the film in my head and I’ve always seen him as Eddie Izzard, who’s gone from wearing lipstick and skirts to being a scruffy bit of alright.

8. Serrifina Pekkala from “His Dark Materials.” Beautiful, wise and ancient, witches are supposed to make fantastic lovers. Someone who’s been around for 300 years must have learned a thing or two.

7. Silver, the robot from “The Silver Metal Lover”. Anyone who’s read this offering from Tanith Lee knows it’s not quite as dubious as it sounds. I’m not really into making out with machines or anything, but Silver was kind of…well, purpose built.

6. Anafiel Delauny from “Kushiel’s Dart”. A hot, noble spy who trains his young proteges in the art of subterfuge. (Okay, and then makes them sleep with people for information; not so great) Ultimately, Delauny perfers the company of men, but this is my list, and the boys can just take a seat.

5. Phedre no’ Delauny from the Kushiel novels. The most famous courtesan of her age in Terre de Ange. While the touch of Kushiel makes her a natural born submissive, I imagine the more…cooperative arts… are within her capabilities too.

4. Hamlet,  from “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”. I’m with Velocibadger girl on the screwed up Shakespearian guys. As much as I hate it, I’ve always wanted to “fix” him.

3. Gabriel, from “Archangel”. An eventually tamed member of the Angelic Host of Samaria. Mmmm, wings..

2. Faramir from “Return of the King”. The guy gets totally lost in the shadow of his brother, gets shafted by his dad and ends up as second choice to a shield maiden but is still a total bloody hero.

1. Landen Parke-Lane from the Thursday Next novels. Puts up with his wife’s bookjumping and even his own eradication and STILL manages to be a great all around guy.

I tag Greeblemonkey, i love a kiwi, Alkelda from Saints and Spinners and The Goddess of Clarity.

I get a little funny about my books. It might actually be more accurate to say that I get a little funny about stories. (Although some of my more treasured volumes will be kept out of the Prawn’s reach until she learns that pages are for turning and not for chewing.) I roll ones that I love around in my head like you would a glass of good wine. And, as you can imagine, I get kind of cranky when movies come out.

There are two notable exceptions in my experience to the “book always far outstripping the movie” rule. New Line’s Lord of the Rings trilogy definitely did justice to Tolkien’s work. While I wouldn’t say the movies are BETTER than the books, they definitely managed to capture the scale and themes of the trilogy admirably. The fact that the director’s cuts come in at ONLY 12 hours straight of hobbits, battles, orcs and guys with big hair on horses is quite frankly astonishing. The other exception was the little watched The Prestige. I read the book years before the movie came out and was left literarily cold. However, when the film came out, the script writer had managed to prune out all of the extraneous information and go-nowhere plotlines to come up with an engaging fable about obsession and the willingness of people to lose their identities in the pursuit of perfection and revenge.

I have a few books on reading rotas. Every few years, I’ll get reacquainted with my favourites- leaving enough time in between readings to make the experience new again. Lord of the Rings is one. Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom Trilogy is another. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving is a third. Coming into my reading cycle at the moment is Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, comprised of The Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.

This story is extremely close to my heart. In the guise of a fantastic adventure story, Pullman explores tough themes of coming of age, religion, predetermination, humanism, power, corruption and our relationship with the universe around us as well what it means to have a soul.

Although my love for the story knows no bounds, (yeah, okay, I really REALLY want to be able to see my daemon) I must admit that I’m on the fence about Pullman himself. There’s no denying that he has a serious bug up his ass about religion in general and has trouble admitting that in public, instead responding with a mild, “It’s a book about a little girl who goes on a big adventure.” You can’t write three books that are as vehemently anti-religion as His Dark Materials and then pretend to be shocked when that’s the message that readers glean from it. I’m thinking he needs a good slap upside the head from Richard Dawkins. (Disclaimer: I’m not a fan of Richard Dawkins, but you sure can’t say that he’s afraid to be unpopular.) I don’t think I’m alone in this opinion.

During my first reading of the trilogy, I found it hard to believe that it was ostensibly being marketed as a young adult novel due to the complexity of the ideas. On further readings when I voiced this opinion again, the Rock Star commented that it’s fairly easy for young readers to take what they want from a novel and effectively skim the rest. For a child, it’s easy to read the trilogy as an exciting adventure story, free from more difficult meaning.

Which, from what I’ve heard, is exactly the tack New Line has decided to take while bringing the first of the novels (under its US title, The Golden Compass) to the big screen.

While I understand the need to make a big budget picture that they hope will follow their LOTR success, taking a stance of “We’re going to make a super-wizzo epic with lots of special effects and armoured bears and witches and everything, but oh, we’re going to take out all that church stuff because obviously people won’t pay to see a movie that in any way challenges their ideals, k?” chaps my literary ass a little bit. (Fair enough, the whole “killing God” storyline would probably sink the film faster than a U-boat, but that bit is probably easily pruned without damaging the overall significance of the plot.) The fact is, I’d like New Line to show some cinematic nuts and address some of the book’s more difficult ideas.

However, obviously, I haven’t seen the film yet and should probably reserve judgement until I see how the storylines are handled. In a purely IT appreciative way, I’d encourage anyone to have a look at the beautifully done movie site and have a play with some of the features, including the ever popular “Meet your Daemon” quiz.

Reason number 8,437 that I married The Rock Star:

“I’ll look after the Prawn on Saturday so you can read Harry Potter as long as you make tea.”

Ladies, please form an orderly queue to be beaten away with a stick.

So, okay, I NEED to talk about Harry Potter. BUT, as a public service to those who have NOT finished yet, let me say again that in this blog, YOU WILL FIND OUT LOTS OF MAJOR PLOT POINTS, SO IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE STOP READING NOW. I was going to make the entire text of this post the same color as the background, but after I finished it, I realized that there would be a hell of a lot of aesthetically unpleasing white space. And I hate unpleasing white space, so as yet another public service, I will begin, as is Blogapotamus fashion, with some light expository writing to give you a chance to turn away if you so desire.

Still here? Right.

In a stunning display of self restraint, I was determined to get to the gym on Saturday morning before cracking the spine of the book, which arrived, literally, as I was walking out the door with my bag. Shifting this baby weight has proved slightly more problematic than I had hoped and let me tell you, it was a near Herculean feat for me to walk back up the stairs to the flat, deposit the unopened Amazon package on the sofa and walk back down to the car while my inner 6 year old was throwing a screaming fit on the floor.

Upon my return, however, I wasted no time in tearing the package open, sitting my still overly large posterior on the couch and ceasing to move from that spot for the rest of the day.

First off, I’d like to say that although I have enjoyed the whole series, (but don’t get me started on the apparent lack of ANY form of editing in Order of the Phoenix.) I think JK Rowling will be, on the whole, a one trick pony. Although she was fairly good at gradually increasing the complexity of the storytelling from book to book, I didn’t see a whole lot of growth of her as a writer. I’m not sure she learned anything that will stand her in any stead as she tries to continue her career. (Except maybe the accurate price of a SunSeeker yacht.) Her great strength was in creating a believable world in which to set her story; one enough like ours to be recognisable and different enough to be interesting.

Expoz stops here.

Okay, so, The Deathly Hallows. Rowling loses no time jumping straight into the action, setting the menacing tone right away with a torture scene, giving us an idea of the stakes; Voldemort is Hitler, Stalin and Edi Amin all rolled into one and he’s got his sights set on domination of the wizarding world, and, one gathers, the world at large. He is the archetypal villain; power mad, paranoid and careless about life.

Although Rowling was much publicised for her assertion that “two characters will die” it’s fairly obvious from the start that the book is going to boast a higher body count than Total Recall as right off the bat, as both Harry’s beloved owl, Hedewig and Auror Mad Eye Moody are killed by Death Eaters in an attempt to get Harry to a safe house. The Boy Who Lived is already having what my mother would call “a hobbit day.” (After watching The Fellowship of the Ring, she commented, “Well, that was just one damn thing after another, wasn’t it?”)

Rowling pushes the plot along furiously to highlight the desperate pace that Harry and cohorts must keep up in order to stay one step ahead of the Dark Lord while they search for “horcruxes”; bits of Voldemort’s soul that he has inadvisably divided from himself and instilled into both symbolic inanimate objects and living creatures. We have the usual teenage tantrums along the way (even when life and death is at stake, a 17 year old is a 17 year old and prone to being paralyzed by self doubt even when someone is threatening to blow up your family) and divisions between the holy trinity of Harry, Hermione and Ron; the Father, the Son and the lovable doofus. (forgive me, Goddess of Clarity. He does pull off several great saves along the way as well.) But in true storytelling fashion, the three ALWAYS manage to resolve their differences and prove to all of us, rather nauseatingly, that we accomplish more through teamwork than we would alone. Even “the Chosen One” needs a hand.

The Deathly Hallows of the title finally make an appearance in Chapter 21 when we learn of yet another holy trinity- 3 supposedly mythical objects wrought by Death and given to 3 wizards in a children’s tale. It’s this tale that allows Harry to finally make some sense out of some of You-Know-Who’s actions that he’s been witness to through the psychic link that they share. Voldemort is looking for the Deathly Hallows in order to master Death, making himself not only invincible, but immortal as well. Harry realizes that if he succeeds, they are TOTALLY boned. Lucky for him that he’s already GOT one of them- his cloak of invisibility. The other two, The Elder Wand (the most powerful magical magnifier in the world) and the Resurrection Stone (a stone that allows one to summon the dead) are still missing. When Harry witnesses Voldemort defiling Dumbledore’s tomb, he is shocked to discover that indeed his old teacher and mentor was the last possessor of The Elder Wand, which is now in the hands of his greatest enemy.

Unfortunately for The Dark Lord’s most infamous lackey, Snape, now headmaster of a much changed Hogwarts, Voldemort believes that to TRULY possess the wand, he must defeat its true owner, which, unfortunately seems to be Snape, seeing as how he went all Tony Soprano on Dumbledore at the end of The Half Blood Prince. Snape has an unfortunate accident involving a large snake but before going on to that great Potions Dungeon in the sky, passes to Harry what every fan of the series has been waiting for; memories that show beyond a shadow of a doubt that Snape was definitely NOT the one dimensional bad guy that we all kind of knew he wasn’t but hoped that he’d get around to telling us sooner or later, cause we were getting kind of tired of him behaving like a total dick.

Through Rowling’s convenient flashback device, the Pensieve, we follow Snape thought his first childhood meeting with Lily Evans, (Harry’s mother) their schooling together, Snape’s beginnings with the Death Eaters, his utter despair and remorse for her death at the hands of Voldemort , his pledge to Dumbledore to work to keep Harry safe, Dumbledore’s request to Snape to be the instrument of his death (we knew it) and most shockingly, (but not really if you were paying attention through the last six books) the revelation that Harry will need to sacrifice himself to finally be rid of Voldemort as HE is Voldemort’s final horcrux. Harry’s classroom nemesis has spent his life pining for lost love. Snape, who has been a close second for the title of “Most Hated” for 6 books running, is finally revealed as an unfortunate boy who loved a girl, fell in with the wrong crowd and found redemption, rather than an evil, detention-giving mastermind.

By now, the climactic battle scene is in full swing as the students and teachers of Hogwarts and just about every other mainstay character of the series are in a 10 round, knock down, drag-out magical brawl with the Death Eaters in the hallowed halls of the school itself. There are casualties, most notably, Lupin the Werewolf, Nymphadora Tonks and Weasley twin, Fred, cut down, mid-smart ass remark. Someone obviously neglected to mention to him the rules of being comic relief in an adventure novel: If you’re the hero of a story, you can be the world’s biggest wiseguy, but if you shoot your mouth off without the luxury of top billing, you might as well paint a target on your forehead, wave your wedding tackle at the villain and urge him to come and have a go if he think he’s hard enough.

In the midst of the chaos, Harry manages to slip away to his solitary fate, but not before imparting the knowledge pertaining to the final horcrux (located inside Voldemort’s giant snake, Nagini) to Neville Longbottom, who is proving to be much more of a hard man than previously hinted at in previous novels. On his way to meet his destiny, Harry pauses as he discovers the true nature of Dumbledore’s final bequest to him- the Golden Snitch that Harry caught in his first Quidditch match with the inscription, “I open at the close”. Harry tells the Snitch that he is about to die and it opens to reveal the Resurrection Stone in the form of a ring. (also one of Voldemort’s previous horcruxes, destroyed by Dumbledore in The Half Blood Prince) The shades of all that he has loved and lost appear around him to comfort him as he makes his way toward You-Know-Who’s hide out, where he offers himself up for sacrifice- an offer eagerly accepted by The Dark Lord, who Avada Kedavras him into oblivion the moment he shows his face.

Of course, our erstwhile hero is NOT deceased, as this would prove devastating to both readers and the chances of Rowling increasing her bank balance yet FURTHER sometime down the line when someone offers her a large-ish island somewhere (maybe Maui) to write another book. He instead ends up at King’s Cross Station, which is a sad lookout for afterlife enthusiasts everywhere. There he meets Dumbledore who gives him a hearty pat on the back for being a good little Christ metaphor and provides exposition tying up many loose ends including a) exactly why Harry’s not dead, b) Dumbledore’s own backstory and c) why Harry should go back to finish Voldemort’s sorry snake-toting ass. The scene that I’d expected happened just as I imagined it would- Harry being in limbo and being given a choice of going back to fight or simply to go “on”. Of course, he chooses to return and in a lovely moment that touches on the nature of reality, Harry asks Dumbledore if what was happening was real, or just in his head, to which Dumbledore replies,

“Of course it’s happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

Back in the world, the story comes to several explosive finishes. Neville Longbottom, acting on Harry’s advice, manages to slay Voldemort’s constant, slithery companion and horcrux, Nagini. Molly Weasley dispatches the Dark Lord’s batshit crazy first lieutenant, Bellatrix Lestrange and gets to say a naughty word. (After pretty much having every single one of her family members attacked at some point in the previous six books, one might say she earned it.) And finally, as might be inferred, Harry finally manages to finish off You-Know-Who once and for all. Ever the hero, and enormous display of maturity and wisdom, Harry gives up the Elder Wand (although only after repairing his own which was broken earlier on in the book) and the Resurrection Stone and heads off to, I don’t know, maybe have a little lie down in a darkened room.

The chapter that appeared most often on spoiler sites was the epilogue. I personally feel that Rowling copped out with her “Nineteen years later” stunt, where we find Ginny and Harry, Ron and Hermione cheerfully sending their broods of rugrats off to Hogwarts at Platform 9 ¾. While the ending was “feel good” it wasn’t necessarily “good.” It was the “happily ever after, we’ve named our kids after the fallen, the circle of life, to everything turn, turn, turn, etc” ending that everyone probably thought they wanted, but when they actually read, felt a bit cheated by. Rowling was lucky enough to create an engaging world to set her stories in and we all probably would rather have left it at the beginning of the rebuilding process rather than in the belle epoch after Voldemort’s downfall. While it’s nice to know everyone got it on eventually, I would rather have seen them tackle the hard part; rebuilding after the war.

So there you have it. The Deathly Hallows, more or less. I was working at Borders in Minneapolis, MN when The Philosopher’s Stone made its appearance almost 10 years ago. Snared by the curiously compelling story of the boy wizard, I don’t think that anyone working there at the time could have possibly realized what an unprecedented literary phenomenon it was going to turn out to be. I’ve hugely enjoyed the journey- the anticipation for the next instalment; complaining like a child at bedtime who’s promised the next chapter “tomorrow night” upon completion of each volume.

I look forward to making it again when the Prawn is old enough and to be enchanted again by the story of The Boy Who Lived.