Therapy

Right now, I'm in the middle of rereading all the Madeleine L'Engle novels I own, which is almost all of them, I think, and I am having such trouble getting through A House Like a Lotus.

I haven't reread it since before I came to the full realization that I was a giant dyke, and it might be because of the thing that happens to Polly at the end of the book (but toward the beginning of the chronology of the story).

I was almost going to go into a long explanation, but let's just cut to the chase. Basically, Polly gets sexually assaulted by her mentor, a wealthy, sophisticated lesbian named Max. Now, Max is painfully dying of cancer (or some other wasting disease--I forget, and I can't bring myself to look it up right now), and she's out of her mind with pain when she attacks Polly, and Polly escapes into the arms of Max's partner, Ursula, but still. The predatory lesbian thing. It just...

I feel like Madeleine L'Engle has betrayed me. When I read the book for the very first time, I was too young and naive to even really grasp what Max had done. By the time I did, I wasn't really out to myself, and now...

I don't want to read my literary idol, my never-fail source of comfort, telling a story of the predatory lesbian, no matter what Max's excuse for her behavior might be. It hurts it hurts it hurts.

This all may seem melodramatic to you, but Madeleine L'Engle has had an enormous influence on me as a human being, and books in general can affect me much more deeply than anything else in the world can, and I just can't bear this kind of story coming from her--when she has no other positive homosexual stories to balance it out.

I almost feel like Polly does, unable to stand the thought of Max, even though she's brought so much good into her life and meant so much to her.

It hurts it hurts it hurts.

Long one

Days ago, I said something about following up with my thoughts on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and I have finally found the motivation to do it. Spoilers abound, because there was a lot of shit from the book left out.

First, let's talk about how I like it when they leave shit from the book out. For example, that whole thing with Tonks and Lupin is so gross, and Tonks spends the book being so pathetic, and ugh. They're still in the movie; they're together in the movie--I imagine because they're two of the three big deaths at the end--but it's not gross. And it's not a bleeding waste of time.

The only important bit of information we pick up from this whole werewolf romance shit is that a person's Patronus can change its shape. This becomes important in relation to Snape some hundreds of pages into the last book. I don't know if they'll, like, make that explicit in the movie, but the shape of Snape's Patronus is the reason Dumbledore trusted him.

As much as I lament the lack of older Weasley brothers in the movies, it is a relief that the whole weirdness with adding Fleur to the family is dropped completely. So is Percy's feud with the family--he was in the last movie, with the Minister, but no one ever talks about it. That's fine by me.

The Ministry of Magic is completely absent from the movie, which I found to be odd, if only because it becomes very important in the next book who is controlling the Ministry. I guess we don't really need to worry about that until the Ministry is in the hands of the Death Eaters, but still, there's this whole back and forth with the Ministry and Harry--now that they believe him, they want him to be their poster boy, and Harry's like, "Fuck you, dillweeds."

The trouble with making these books into movies is that there is so much information packed into the books, readers expect to see at least most of it presented in the movie. We learn so much about Tom Riddle in the book that is nowhere in the movie. What infuriated me most about the movie was its treatment of horcruxes. We get the explanation of what they are from Slughorn's memory, finally, and then Harry's like, "Ack! They could be anything!"

And Dumbledore actually says, "They could be common household objects," or something close to that, and I was like, "No! That was the whole point of your 'lessons' with Harry! To understand the way Voldemort thinks--to know that he would use trophies as horcruxes! Something from each of the Hogwarts founders, for example!" Blarg.

The way the movie ends, Harry has no idea where to find another horcrux. The way the book ends, he knows he is after Voldemort's snake, Helga Hufflepuff's goblet, and something owned by Rowena Ravenclaw or possibly Godric Gryffindor. The diary and the Peverell family crest ring have been destroyed, and Salazar Slytherin's locket is missing, possibly destroyed already. Three known horcruxes/three guessed horcruxes.

One thing I noticed in re-reading the book (spoiler!) is that Harry actually runs into Ravenclaw's diadem when he's hiding the Prince's book in the Room of Requirement. He puts a tiara on a bust of someone near his hiding spot so he can find it again. If only he'd known what it was, eh?

Anyway. One of the things I never really understand is why, when a movie leaves so much of a book out, it finds time to add things in. There is this truly bizarre scene in the middle of the movie where Bellatrix Lestrange just apparates right up to the Burrow, with two other Death Eaters, and sets it on fire. Like, what? The best I can come up with is that it was the movie's way of showing us how deep we are in the shit at this point. Throughout the book, we get news of Hogwarts students' family members being killed, and all the Ministry stuff and the emptiness of Diagon Alley and all that are a pretty good indication, but the movie uses the destruction of the Burrow, I think, to show us that no one is safe anymore. Nothing will ever be the same now.

Something else I find weird is how Lavender and Parvati have only shown up in the movies in relation to the boys. Parvati and Padma have to be in the fourth movie, because they're Ron and Harry's dates to the Yule Ball, and Parvati gets to face the boggart in the third movie, and Neville tell the boys he heard Parvati saying Hermione was bawling in the ladies' in the first movie, but we never even hear of Lavender until this movie, where she must appear because Ron starts going with her and making Hermione jealous. But now Parvati's missing. The books treat them as a pair, basically, so it feels lacking to have one without the other. At one point in the book, Harry and Parvati even briefly--and mostly non-verbally--commiserate over the madness their best friends are entangled in, which I thought was a nice touch.

Now I'm just over-nit-picking, so I guess I'll call it a day. On the whole, I enjoyed this movie a lot, but there's always so much trouble when you try to squash a giant book into 2 and a half hours. That's why I feel like the Narnia movies are such successful adapations--they took something small and expanded it into something wondrous. Anyway. When's the first part of the final installment come out, again?

Another installment of Emily hates religion

I still can't reconcile my unabashed adoration for everything Madeleine L'Engle has ever written with my utter disdain for religion, especially Christianity. I think especially Christianity because it's the major world religion with which I'm most familiar, but also because it centers on some dude coming back from the dead. And also because it insists that it is the one true religion, which is a characteristic it shares with Islam, I believe. Judaism is the only one of those three not interested in converting anyone, and that is why I love the Jews the best. Even though plenty of Jews can be just as retarded about things like homosexuality and feminism as Christians and Muslims, at least they're not trying to make the whole world Jewish.

"Gayer than a plaid rabbit"

So the first time I read Wicked, I was all "OMG, Glinda is totally gay for Elphaba," but I was pretty sure I was just projecting. I project gaiety everywhere. But then I read Wicked again.

And OMG, you guys, Glinda is totally gay for Elphaba. I don't know how I didn't register this fully the first time I read it, but check this:

The Witch in fact alarmed her a little. It was not just the novelty of seeing her again, but the strange charisma Elphaba possessed, which had always put Glinda in the shade. Also there was the thrill, basis indeterminable, which made Glinda shy, and caused her to rush her words, and to speak in a false high voice like an adolescent.

If that is not how one behaves around a girl one likes, then what the fuck else is it? Now this passage is from toward the end of the book, when the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch of the North meet again after the Wicked Witch of the East has been squashed. Apparently, Glinda has always behaved like a doofus around Elphaba, but I hardly recall such a thing. Oh well.

I can't really tell Elphaba's feelings--she's obviously fond of Glinda--but I'm pretty sure the only person she had romantic feelings for was Fiyero. Unless this means what I was projecting it to mean:

[Glinda] could scarcely dredge up an ounce of recollection about that daring meeting with the Wizard. She could recall far more clearly how she and Elphie had shared a bed on the way to the Emerald City. How brave that had made her feel, and how vulnerable too.

Here, again, it's obvious Glinda has a massive crush on Elphaba, but does "shared a bed" have the euphemistic meaning? The only thing that makes me think so is that last part: "How brave that had made her feel, and how vulnerable too."

Oh, and then there was this one thing Nanny says to Elphaba later, "You were devoted to Glinda, you were. Everyone knew it." That's a little gay. No?

There's a lot of explicit gayness in the Wicked books, but it's almost exclusively dude-on-dude. Elphaba's pops, Crope and Tibbett, Liir. Glinda has that unrequited thing for Elphaba that she can barely even understand, and I really couldn't pick out any other lesbianish thing. And you know I'd be able to pick out all the lesbianish things.

That makes me sad.

While I'm here, my favorite thing Glinda ever did was speak to the Wizard for Elphaba, when she was all paralyzed in front of him. And then Elphaba deserted her, and I was sad. Again.

I guess since it's April Fools, I should have written a post not about books

For a long, long, looooooong time I was of the opinion that a movie could never, ever get a book right. Every time I watched a movie based on a book, I would simply be disappointed. This is largely true: movies always seem to leave out or change parts of the book I enjoy. It's just inevitable, because movies are limited in what they can present. I mean, you try to base a movie on a 1,000 page book, and you get four hours of Vivien Leigh being INTOLERABLE. You know? Sometimes you just gotta cut some stuff.

So I grew up a little and realized that the movie had to find its own way to tell the story of its source novel, and I began to see that some of them can do a good job, even changing things from the source. The Little Women with Winona Ryder is probably the best example of this; there are plenty of things that are different in the movie, but the movie still captures the story, the family bonds, everything. And so I love it. Plus, Winona Ryder is hot when she cuts off all her hair for money for her mother.

Lately, I've started to enjoy some movies better than the books upon which they were based, but this was only because I did not enjoy the books upon which they were based. The Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley, which purists hate, totally slayed me, because it was so fun. Like, the movie demonstrated what I did not get from the book at all, that these five girls were a family who loved each other, who laughed and teased and shared secrets and acted like a modern bunch of sisters might. I liked that a lot, how the movie showed you the affection between the Bennetts and the goofiness of Mr. Bingley, presenting these upper class characters from two hundred years ago as people we could know. These period dramas always present characters as, like, so far removed from the way modern people behave, and that is just not accurate at all. People may have had to put on more ridiculous airs in previous time periods, but everyone has always teased their sisters or gotten nervous around pretty girls, no matter how many undergarments they're forced to wear.

And Jane Austen's writing just did not convey that any of these people really liked each other. That made me sad. Don't tell me I was reading it wrong, either. I know how to read a book, motherfuckers.

Anyway, just a few days ago, I realized that this is why I really liked the Narnia movies: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian showed the Pevensies as a real family, siblings who fight and tease and love each other. That was largely absent in the novels, which were mostly about the plot. I guess you just have to take it on faith that the Pevensies are fond of each other in the books--I mean, there are a few scenes, of course, where you see how close Peter and Lucy are, for instance, but it's just not enough. Mostly, they feel like strangers thrown together on an adventure. In the movies, the kids got to be playful, to act like real kids, and the best part, for me, was that Susan was included. Susan feels much more like part of the family in the movies than she ever did in the books. Even Edmund, who full on betrays them in the first story, gets to belong to the family more fully than Susan.

So, you know, if The Last Battle actually gets made, and the director wants to let Susan into heaven? Totally fine with me.

Half-baked analysis

In all the uproar over the remake of The Neverending Story, I keep seeing people lauding its "message," which is, I guess, "do what you dream," more or less, and that is the cheesiest (and possibly worst) thing about the movie. That's not what the story is about, okay? Remaking the movie and making the themes more compelling and less overt would be a good move. The Neverending Story is not about achieving anything; The Neverending Story doesn't have a moral. The Neverending Story is about using your imagination, for good and ill. What's evil in the novel is not what we would consider evil, not G'mork (although, as a servant of the Nothing, perhaps he would count...) or Xayide, but the Nothing. You can see this in the Childlike Empress; though she is the ruler of Fantastica, she does not condemn evil or praise good--what she fights against is the Nothing, against the thing that is destroying all of Fantastica, good and bad. And the Nothing is taking over Fantastica because people from our world are not using their imaginations--not creating anything. I forget, too, but I believe the Nothing threatens our world as well, because Fantastica is falling.

So while Bastian needs to obtain a kind of belief in himself in order to play his role in this story, that's not the point.

Look, it's been a while since I had to English major out on a book, but if I had to say what the book is really about it, it is about walking the line between imagination and reality. When you live too much in the dismal real world, that world itself suffers for lack of creativity, but if you live too much in a fantasy land, that world also suffers, even while the real world loses you--and you lose yourself. Creation is the theme of this book, filling the Nothing with Something over and over in an infinite number of ways.

It's not about achieving your dreams or whatever damn thing. It's about imagination and how that shapes you and the corner of the world you inhabit.

It shall be told another time! (I hope.)

So, according to the internet, a remake of The Neverending Story is in the works, and really, I am super excited to see how that develops, but also super wary, because the original movie was such a mess.

Anyway, here's what I said a year and a half ago, after I read the book for the first time:

I really wish someone would make this a movie again, like Lord of the Rings style, because it could make a really great film. They could do it in two parts, you know, ending the first one right after Bastian finally saves Fantastica and beginning with his adventures in the forest/desert. But I doubt that Michael Ende's estate will ever let that happen--or that anyone would even want it to happen except for me.

Apparently, I was mostly right about that last thing. The place I found this information was full of maroons bemoaning the fact that this movie was being remade, because it's a childhood classic for them or whatever. And, listen, I understand hanging onto things you loved when you were a kid, but people: The Neverending Story was not a good movie. The plot was a mess; the acting was horrible; the sets were hideous, and it left out all the most interesting parts of the book.

As far as I'm concerned, the remake has nothing but potential. It can tell the story Michael Ende told; it can cast some decent child actors; it can make Fantastica a real place, like they were able to do with Middle Earth and Narnia. They can even make Atreyu green! But there's always a giant suckhole for error when making a movie based upon a novel, and since the first attempt was a fucking failure (I'm sorry--I know I am the only person in America (maybe even literally) who holds this opinion), the second attempt could quite possibly also be a disaster.

But oh man. Please, please, please, I would love to see Fantastica Middle-Earth- and Narnia-style.

An observation or two

One day, when I was twitter surfing, I read on some rando's feed something like, "If Jack Kerouac were alive, twenty-three [I think? I don't know if Tegan and Sara were 23 when this song came about, but that's what the twit said], and a pair of gay Canadian twins, he would have written the song 'Nineteen.'" iTunes played me that song this morning, and the line "I felt you in my legs before I ever met you" totally made me remember that random twit I read. I don't know about the rest of the song being Kerouac-esque, but I've read four Kerouac books, and that first line totally jolted me for being like his writing. Also, I love the iTunes Live version of that song. The end!

I've been hard-up for mix tape inspiration these days, and even though the mix tapes are just for my own personal enjoyment, and no one notices when I don't update the sidebar, I love making them and listening to them in the car, and two weeks listening to the same one is too long, and then Sunday night my iPod got mad at me and only accepted 4 or 5 songs from each playlist, which of course I didn't realize until Monday morning in the car, trying to decide what to listen to on the way to work. I don't know what that mess was supposed to reveal to you, except that I need new mixes! And I really like calling them mix tapes, even though no one has tapes anymore, and I don't even put these mixes on compact discs--they exist entirely digitally--but whatever. So, anyway, for this week I decided to cheat with Genius. I picked a song (in this case, "She'll Come Back to Me" by Cake) and let Genius fly. I deleted the extra songs from the same artist, added four or five myself, and voila! Mix tape. So I don't hate Genius anymore, because it does dig up songs I would sometimes tend to overlook, but for making complete mixes, it's still lacking. I tried to do a Ditty Bops song, and it only gave me ten songs, even though it's supposed to do 25 at minium. Lacking!

A film critic I am not

So when I was a senior at my Catholic high school, we actually got to choose which religion classes we wanted to take. Well, I think we all had to take one semester of some bullshit called "Christian living," but the second semester, we could choose between, like, the banality of evil or Christian themes in film. Guess which one I chose. Seriously, there were like twelve people who didn't take Christian themes in film, and they're all maroons. But anyway, this class was basically a regular film class, because you can find Christian themes anywhere. It was a grand class--I don't think I did any work except present my film (American Beauty), and I got an A.

Anyway, the point of this story was that it was in that class that I first watched Fried Green Tomatoes, and it was right at the time when I was like, "Ohhh, I am, maybe, possibly, gaaaay," and watching Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary Louise Parker together in that movie made me feel all funny. And that food fight, man. So. Gay. So after a few classes of watching the movie, the group who'd chosen it did their presentation or whatever, and I think it was actually our teacher who brought up the, "Are Idgie and Ruth more than friends?" question.

People said no! Can you even believe that? Okay, so yeah, high school students at a Catholic school aren't exactly all up ons the lesbian subtext, but I was still like, "Hello, that food fight?" And come on, Idgie is so gay. Apparently, though, in the movie Idgie is actually Ninny, the old lady Kathy Bates visits in the nursing home? I never got that. That just doesn't make any sense--that old lady is no way Idgie Threadgoode. In the book, Ninny married one of Idgie's brothers, and that's how she knows all about the Threadgoodes. Anyway, that is neither here nor there, really, except I didn't get that from the movie at all.

One of the girls in the presenting group put the debate to bed by saying, "Yo, in the book they're totally more than friends. Idgie's a big dyke, and Ruth falls in love with her." (I am, perhaps, paraphrasing.) And everyone was kinda uncomfortable, the end, I kind of forgot about the movie/book.

I finally read the book last year, and I totally loved it, and the best part for me was how much of a non-issue the whole gay thing was not only to Idgie's family, but to the entire town. My favorite part is when, I think, the mother of the Threadgoode clan matter-of-factly informs all the children that Idgie has a crush on Ruth and not to make fun of her for it. This story takes place in the deepest of the Deep South, in the 1930s, and Idgie never has to hide who she is. As impossible as that seems, it was still nice to see it like that.

Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary Louise Parker are lovely in the film, but the part with Kathy Bates just drives me crazy, which is why I've only actually watched the entire movie once, in my religion class.

Nerdier by the hour

So a friend of mine who is still in school (suckah!) is taking a Shakespeare class this semester, and this has caused me to think about Shakespeare things. I did a tally, and I have read 22 out of 38 plays, which sounds impressive at first glance (if you're into that sort of thing, anyway), but it's really only a little more than half of them. Now I must read the rest. Clearly.

Secondly, I was thinking about all the ways Shakespeare shows up in modern works. For one, NBC did a TV version of The Tempest some time ago, when Katherine Heigl was turning me gay--she was Miranda. And it took place in the Louisiana bayou during (or just after) the American Civil War, and like, it was terrible. I can't remember if I've seen a recorded staging of The Tempest. Stephen had us watch recorded stagings of some of the plays we read in class, but they were usually so dull that I turned them off after the first act.

For two, in the fourth pants book, Carmen gets a part in some theater company's summer production of The Winter's Tale--she's Perdita, in fact, and she has this strange flirtation with some mildly famous British actor who is also in the cast, but he's, like, older than she is, and he's allegedly playing Mamillius, but, uh, Mamillius dies when he's, like, five, from grief because he thinks his mother is dead, and he has about two lines. I hate that! When the author apparently just looked a list of parts in the play and picked one. In the pants movie, this fellow plays Florizel, who is Perdita's love interest, which, for Christ's sake, makes so much more sense. At least whoever was in charge of the movie was familiar with Shakespeare. Ugh.

Uh, okay, that's it, I guess. Viva Shakespeare! And down with Ann Brashares!

Alarming!

I have a question, people of the internet. I know no one who regularly or semi-regularly reads this blog will be able to answer my question or know what I am talking about, but maybe a googler or two could offer some insight. Some day. At the very least, I must express my displeasure.

Okay. In The Patchwork Girl of Oz, why oh why is Ojo covered with a Klan robe when he is taken to prison? "the soldier put upon the boy the jeweled handcuffs and white prisoner's robe with the peaked top and holes for the eyes." Like, what? What??? WHAT.

This is disturbing. All the kid did was pick a six-leaf clover, and now he's got to wander around the Emerald City like a Klan member? What does that mean?

Also, I know I'm a completist, and there are, like, twelve of these Oz books left, but oh my god, they suck. I'm totally throwing in the towel after I finish this one.

(Still better than Twilight, though!)

Books of 2008

Best new book: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (runner-up: Ely and Naomi's No Kiss List)
Best re-read: The Hobbit (runner up: The Hero and the Crown)
Best book involving dragon-killing: The Hero and the Crown (runner-up: The Hobbit)
Worst new book: Twilight (might be the worst book of all time) (runner-up: Tales from Silver Lands)
Most disappointing book: Special Topics in Calamity Physics (runner up: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)
Best new (to me) author: Margaret Atwood
Best book published in 2008: Passing for Black (It might be the only book published in 2008 that I read, but it was still good!)
Best hero*: Ely, Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List
Best heroine*: Idgie Threadgood, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe
Best new lesbian book: Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis
Most wasted lesbian potential: Wicked
Total books read: 54

*New books only. These two categories were tougher than I thought they would be, because much of this year's list is rereads, and there weren't that many main characters that could compete with the main characters of the books I'd read before. I need to read more new books next year. Also, more books about boys. I love boys, but this year's list was almost entirely female-centric. (Also, by "new," I merely mean books I haven't read before.)

Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins
Farewell Summer by Ray Bradbury
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle
A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor
Andersen's Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen
Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis by Ali Smith
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
Princess on the Brink by Meg Cabot
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Shadow of the Knife by Jane Fletcher
The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
Once Upon a Time in the North by Philip Pullman
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
grl2grl: Short Fictions by Julie Anne Peters
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
Messenger by Lois Lowry
Passing for Black by Linda Villarosa
The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley
Pirates! by Celia Rees
Wicked by Gregory Maguire
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Witch Child by Celia Rees
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Sorceress by Celia Rees
The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Tales from Silver Lands by Charles J. Finger
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum

A forest grew

Okay. I need to talk about this. Last night, Mike IMed me to tell me that a live-action, feature-length film of Where the Wild Things Are is in production, and he said something like, "This might be pretty cool if they don't eff it up."

Let me tell you, people, Where the Wild Things Are is one of my very favorite books, children's literature or otherwise, and the point of it is its illustrations and its very simple story. Seriously, the book contains about ten full sentences. So I said, "How could they not eff it up?" I immediately figured it would be just like when Jim Carrey and co. shit all over How the Grinch Stole Christmas, bloating the hell out of it so that it would fill up an hour and twenty minutes.

But then I looked at the people involved in this film, and I became utterly conflicted. For one thing, Maurice Sendak is credited as a producer, so he must be involved somehow or other. Then, Spike Jonze is directing, and he co-wrote the screenplay with Dave Eggers. Dave Eggers! That bastard knows how to tell a story. And then! The thing that got me almost on board with this mess: Catherine Keener and Catherine O'Hara are appearing in this movie. Well, Catherine O'Hara is doing a voice, presumably for a wild thing, and Catherine Keener is credited as Connie, who is maybe Max's mother? I don't know. Either way. Catherine Keener and Catherine O'Hara. Also, Lauren Ambrose and James Gandolfini. What?

There are some good people attached to this film, but then the article said that they'd had to do a bunch of reshoots because test audiences of small children were fleeing the theater in terror, which sounds like a pretty good adaptation of this book to me. I mean, these are some pretty fierce monsters, rolling their terrible eyes and gnashing their terrible teeth until Max tames them with a magic trick. They're scary beasts, but as a kid you're never actually afraid because Max, in his wolf suit, is fearless and totally in control of the wild things. He even sends them to bed without their supper! So it would be interesting if the monsters were actually scary in the film. But obviously, the people making this movie want the small children to like it.

Also, how are they going to render the wild things? They can't CGI Sendak's illustrations. I guess I'm more intrigued than irritated by the idea of a live-action rendering of such perfect illustrations, so that's good. For now.

I don't know what to think. I guess I'll have to wait till October and see for myself.

Why I don't feel optimistic about enjoying The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Let's talk about why I hate Twilight

The girl keeps having to be saved over and over by the boy.

The boy is a stalker, and the girl just thinks that's romantic. Seriously, the vampire breaks into her house every night, and watches her sleep. First of all, that severely violates vampire mythology, because vampires cannot come in unless they have been invited. Which I know because I watched Buffy. Second of all, that is the creepiest thing I have ever heard of, and if Bella had a lick of sense she would run all the way back to Phoenix.

The boy is mean to the girl, not because he's a vampire, but because he's a boy, and she's a pitiful female who can't keep track of her own feet and keeps needing to be rescued.

I read somewhere that Stephenie Meyer is a Mormon and has admitted to using her novels to promote abstinence. Whatever, abstinence is fine--I just think writing a story about vampires as a metaphor for waiting to have sex till you're married is gross.

Knowing that Stephenie Meyer is a Mormon makes passages like this one take on a disturbingly allegorical tone: "Just because we've been dealt a certain hand it doesn't mean that we can't choose to rise above--to conquer the boundaries of a destiny that none of us wanted. To try to retain whatever essential humanity we can." This is doubtless almost certainly my reading too much into this, but I can't help it. Religious people who think homosexuality is wrong tend to believe that perhaps you can be born gay, but you shouldn't act on those impulses. Even if you're born that way, you can deny that part of yourself. And I bet for some Mormons (and other religious zealots), homosexuals are just as depraved as vampires.

And finally, if Bella makes one more reference to how achingly beautiful Edward is, I will vomit up everything I have ever eaten in my life and mail it in a ziploc bag to Stephenie Meyer herself.

So I haven't finished it yet, and I don't even really want to, but I've never abandoned a book after reading this far, and I sure won't start now. But one thing I really don't understand is why lesbians love these books. I know of two personally, and I'm sure there are more. I mean, I love a good heterosexual love story, but this is...not a good heterosexual love story, and even if the love story part were interesting, the main female character sucks! She's timid and clueless and likes being rescued and stalked and is entirely co-dependent. What is there to admire or identify with here?

Please, lesbians, tell me. What is there in Twilight for you? (I get it. Kristen Stewart is hot. THAT IS NOT ENOUGH.)

I do call myself a booknerd, after all

So yesterday, Melissa came in to work and dumped the first Twilight book on my desk and said, "I read this in four days. Read it, so we can discuss."

Who am I to argue? I started reading it at lunch yesterday, after I went to the library to get a few more books I've been commanded to read. So far it's pretty blech, and I have a feeling it will only get worse, because I'm sorry, but the mortal lady/vampire fellow romance has already been done, like, quite well, and Bella Swan is no Buffy Summers. Not even close. Is Bella going to have to kill Edward to save the world from being sucked into a hell dimension? Then WHY SHOULD I CARE? Cedric Diggory is prettier than David Boreanaz, but that is neither here nor there, is it? Plus, the writing is ungainly. I hate it when a first person narrator has to describe her own appearance--there is no way to do that smoothly, and Stephenie Meyer doesn't even come close. Or when the narrator has to say things like, "I'm clumsy." Hello! Show, don't tell! And why are the vampires so beautiful? Is that a thing with vampires I was unaware of? Because they're immortal, they're all beautiful? Kind of...boring, I have to say.

Anyway, Melissa and I let curiosity get the best of us here, and we had to see what all the fuss is about. The fuss, it would seem, is more than this bloated romance novel deserves, so I have decided to make a list of my favorite young adult fiction.

1. A Wrinkle in Time and its companions by Madeleine L'Engle (aka The Time Quartet, plus An Acceptable Time: Here we have a story that is essentially about the battle between good and evil, and it is perfection. The best I've ever seen it done, honestly. JRR Tolkein can suck it.
2. The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder: Oh, these are classics, and I think they're a charming way to get insight into America's pioneer history.
3. The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley: Few authors can create entire new worlds so well, and I am utterly jealous of the way McKinley can. These books are engrossing and feature totally badass female heroes. I've only read each book twice, but I will reread them many, many times, I'm sure.
4. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman: This series does so many things well; it's characters are rich--no one is a cliche; it's a shot to organized religion, which I have to say I enjoy; and it also gives us entire new worlds. Imaginative, well-written, and it has the best young girl hero ever written by a man.
5. Judy Blume's ouevre: Really. I read almost everything she'd written when I was ten or eleven. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret is kind of quaint these days, but I couldn't get enough of it. She could write about young kids without sounding patronizing. Loved it.
6. Little Women and its sequels by Louisa May Alcott: Oh, come on. Classics. Everyone who hasn't read Little Women, do it right now.
7. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis: Okay, I've become somewhat disenchanted with the Christian propaganda of these novels, but when I was a kid I couldn't stop reading them. Plus, they are very imaginative, and if you ignore the Christian subtext, the stories are quite good.
8. The Giver by Lois Lowry: This book is haunting and lovely. It's simply written, but it really gets to you. I can't recommend this one highly enough.
9. Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Leviathan: This is probably the most recent YA novel to worm its way into my heart. I'm way past the YA target audience, but when YA fiction is good, that doesn't matter.
10. Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden: I've said this before, I know, but this is the best gay young adult novel I have ever read. Lesbians of the world, read this book.

This list wasn't ranked; I just wrote down books as they occurred to me. Either way, all of them are better written, more imaginative, and more affecting than Twilight. I am getting the sense that this is just a PG-13 romance novel. Like Gone with the Wind for preteens. Plus vampires! Melissa's husband called it "literary fast food," which I think may be spot on. Easy to read, mildly amusing, but it rots your brain. Somewhere on the internet, I read that it was being called "professional fan fiction" which is also striking me as quite apt. We'll see if Bella goes through any kind of transformation--if any of the characters change. That'll maybe redeem it a little bit.

Another book rant! (Same book, though)

Okay, so in my effort to better understand Wicked, I am watching The Wizard of Oz right now, and I have a problem.

In the novel, when Dorothy's house drops on the Wicked Witch of the East, she is greeted by two Munchkins and the Good Witch of the North. The Good Witch of the North* has no idea how Dorothy is to get back to Kansas, so her magical chalkboard (for truth) suggests Dorothy go to the Emerald City to seek the aid of the Wizard. Then she and the Munchkins depart, and Dorothy sets about preparing for her journey. One of the things she does is take the Witch's silver shoes, because hers are kind of worn out and won't last on such a long walk.

*Let me note that this woman is not Glinda. Glinda is the Good Witch of the South, and Dorothy doesn't meet her until she's killed the Wicked Witch of the West.

In the film, the Good Witch of the North meets Dorothy after her crash landing, but this Witch is Glinda. And in the novel it is Glinda who tells Dorothy how to use the magic in the shoes to get back to Kansas, so one would assume that since Glinda meets Dorothy in the film--and in fact, actually gives her the shoes to prevent Triple Dubs from getting them--she already knows that Dorothy can use the shoes to get back to Kansas. And it is Glinda, I believe, who does tell Dorothy how to use the shoes at the end of the film, right? (I haven't finished watching it yet.)

So why does the rest of the movie happen at all?

I could go on about how the Dorothy part of the story of Wicked more closely follows the film than the novel, but I'm not into it right now. Perhaps later.

Triumphant return of the book rant

Here is something I have discovered this week: The Wizard of Oz bites--actually, the book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, bites. Also, the titular wizard. But anyway. Let me tell you a long and boring story.

Back in August when I had mono, and all I could do was lie on the couch and bemoan my fate, I decided to while away the hours by reading, since, try as I might, I couldn't sleep. Which is especially brutal when you have mono, and all your body wants is sweet, sweet sleep. I realized that I was out of books to read, and I didn't feel like rereading any of my old standbys, so I turned to one of my few friends who likes to read and asked her what her favorite books are. Apparently, her favorite book is The Lovely Bones, which made me puke (but she somehow made me agree to give it a chance when I was not ill and depressed--will I keep my word?), but the rest of the list seemed pretty okay, so I made my brother drive me to the library, and I checked out three of them.

One of these books was Wicked by Gregory Maguire, which I picked against my better judgment, because I had told myself if I were to ever read this book I would have to do the background reading first. The background reading being, obviously, L. Frank Baum's Oz books. All of them. But at that point in my life I was in no mood to do such extensive background reading (I was really sick, see), so I just checked out Wicked and plowed through it in four days.

Ultimately, I thought the idea was pretty brilliant, telling the Wizard of Oz stories from the point of view of the witches (wicked and otherwise), but the execution as a whole bummed me out. It seemed really cynical, even for me, and I don't think anyone would ever call my disposition sunny, if you know what I'm sayin', but looking back on it, that could have been because I was pretty bummed out about mono effectively ruining the end of my summer. Also I was trying way too hard to find some kind of, like, meaning in it, instead of just reading the damn story. I don't know why I was so hellbent on that--I never do that shit--but... I don't know. I ruined it. And I finished it, and I was like, "Well. Next bitch."

Then this friend of mine ever so kindly sent me a mix CD with not one but two songs from the Wicked musical on it, and I fell so crazily, madly in love that I immediately demanded the rest of the album with all the ferocity of a rabid animal, and this friend of mine ever so kindly obliged, and since then I have been listening to that album all the damn time. Naturally, it made me want to take another look at the book. Naturally, it made me want to actually do the background reading first. And what I have discovered is that I'm pretty sure Gregory Maguire took some stuff from the film version of The Wizard of Oz as well, and now I have to watch that shit again, because I think I basically knew the story of The Wizard of Oz from all the parodies and updates and blah blah--did anyone see that Muppet version with motherfuckin' Ashanti?--and I have no clear recollection of seeing the original film whatsoever. Except I have a vaguely unsettling memory of flying monkeys and dark mountains. Who knows if that's even a real memory.

Anyway, I guess the point of that story was to tell you how I came about deciding to read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Now let me tell you why it sucked! First of all, none of Dorothy's trials ever last that long or are the least bit suspenseful. An obstacle is presented; she goes oh crap; five seconds later, they're back on the yellow brick road. I couldn't bring myself to give an ass rat's.

Second, let me make a sweeping generalization! It would seem to me that when male authors write a fantasy story with a young female protagonist, they have no idea what do to with her, and she remains the least interesting character in the story. I mean, I think this judgment is at least a little fair, because male authors have no idea what it's like to be an eight-year-old girl. Some you'd think had never even met an eight-year-old girl. Lewis Carroll, C.S. Lewis, L. Frank Baum: their young female protagonists are so boring: Alice just weeps, gets confused, and wants to go hoooome; Lucy Pevensie never has a naughty thought ever in her head--she's good and true and brave, which, you know, are not bad characteristics, and Lucy Pevensie is certainly the most fleshed-out of these characters, but...a little boring.

Now Dorothy, I just do not understand. She's a little girl, and she is good and pure and true, as evidenced by how she wants to help everyone she meets, blaaaaah. The whole time she's in Oz, which seems to be this rather fascinating land, all she can think about is getting back to Kansas, even though Baum made sure to make Kansas sound as unappealing as possible by only using the word gray (over and over and over again) to describe it. Even her aunt and uncle are gray. Why would you want to get back to that shit? Yes, she's in a strange place, and at least Kansas and Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are familiar, but she makes friends in Oz right quick.

Oh, god. I have to tell you about the preface Baum wrote to this story: he says something about how now (the turn of the 20th century) children don't need their fairy tales to teach them a lesson or moral or whatever, so he has presented a fairy tale which will only enchant them. This is the problem with this story: Dorothy doesn't learn anything. She doesn't leave Oz changed one whit. What is the point of telling a story if the main character doesn't change? (This is also why I hated Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, I just realized.) I'm not saying she needs to learn some kind of moral or life lesson or anything, but her journey through Oz should have affected her somehow. But no. She does all these things, saves the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, helps the Cowardly Lion find his courage, exposes the Wizard for the fraud he is, accidentally kills an evil and powerful woman, and then she just runs on home to Kansas. The end.

And, I mean, maybe the fact that I didn't care about the main character could have been made up with an interesting story, but I already said the story was not interesting. The only halfway interesting part was the story of the golden cap and how it can be used to call the winged monkeys to do the wearer's bidding.

Anyway, despite all this, I want to watch the film and then read Wicked again, because I love the musical soundtrack that much.

Snobbing out, dorking out, etc.

Okay, so. I loved Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist so much that I bought the other book Rachel Cohn and David Levithan wrote together, Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List, and I think I liked it better. I can't quite tell, because... I kind of hated Naomi, and she's one of the main characters. But I really liked how the story was told through the points of view of nearly all the people involved. And I really liked the gay love story--and it was a boy gay love story. Not that I don't love gay boys or anything, but you know I like to hear about girls falling in love much better.

Anyway. I can't quite figure out why I hated Naomi, but from the very beginning I kind of had no patience for how she was still stubbornly holding out for her gay best friend to fall in love with her. I should cut her some slack, because she's only eighteen, and that's a little bit young to be able to see those kinds of things. And maybe because I've never been in love with a boy, gay or otherwise. I've never actually been in love with anyone, but you know. Serious crushes? Always on girls. Straight girls. So I get that part of being totally into someone who'll never want you that same way, but, you know, even when I was eighteen, I knew it would never happen. You know, because the girls--they weren't into girls. And I didn't think so much of myself that I thought I could turn them or anything. Even during some of my more protracted crushes, I never really thought anything would happen. And the crushes that lasted the longest were the most hopeless. Ugh.

Also, she's flunking out of college in this story, which is another thing I have no patience for. I realize this makes me a snob of the highest degree, but... Go to class, do the work--or at least just do the work--stop bitching. I'm not very sympathetic to the problems of this character. That's why I hated her. And I mean, her parents' marriage imploded, which I should have been able to sympathize with, but she was just so...blech about everything else that I didn't give a crap. Plus, she was super mean to Ely, and Ely, though not without faults, was not an ass to her, so. Eff you, Naomi.

This book wasn't as full of trying-too-hard hipster references as Nick and Norah--in fact, there were copious references to things that are decidedly unhip, like High School Musical and Dawson's Creek. But there was this one story Ely was telling about...something he did with Naomi, and he finished it with, "It was a time," which is something I often say, because it comes from... My So-Called Life. "We did. We had a time," Angela muses after her evening with Rayanne at Let's Bolt. These authors--or at least one of them--clearly dig My So-Called Life, and I just can't hate on that, can I?

I want a book like this, like Nick and Norah about girls. Annie on My Mind is totally the only good teenaged lesbo book I've ever read. I've read a lot of mediocre and a few bad ones. I want a good one for the 21st century.

Shit.

Does that mean I have to write it?

In other I hate Sarah Palin news

The Governor of Alaska is at the very least interested in banning books. When she was elected mayor of Wasilla, she allegedly asked the city librarian if she would be all right with removing books from library shelves if the mayor saw fit to ask her to do so. The librarian said no, like any good librarian would. Whether it went any further is up for debate, blah blah, but the fact remains that Sarah Palin thinks government censorship of what we are able to read is a-okay.

Oh it is NOT.

Anyway, children, the ALA's Banned Books Week is coming up (September 27 - October 4), and in honor of that, I have decided to read the ten most challenged books of 2007, according to info gathered by the ALA. These books are

1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
2. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
3. Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes
4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
7. TTYL by Lauren Myracle
8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
9. It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

And actually, I've read three* of them already, so I'm cheating and only reading seven. Also And Tango Makes Three is a picture book about gay penguins, so really, it'll be six actual books. The Nashua Public library had best have all these books, but I will totally buy the gay penguins book if they don't have that.

The Chocolate War and Huck Finn, I think, appear on the ALA's list of most challenged books of all time (along with some of my very favorites, like The Giver and A Wrinkle in Time), and I don't know about the Chocolate War, but Huck Finn is always challenged because of how many times the n-word appears in it. And like, um. That's kind of the point of Huck Finn--it's the racism of the 1830s South through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy. Mark Twain wasn't racist; Huck isn't racist--the society in which this boy lives is racist. The book is not racist--it's not a Klan manifesto. God. People are so dumb.

Well. Duh. People who want to ban books are all idiots. Sigh.

Oh, by the way. What kind of books did Mayor Palin allegedly want to remove from her city's shelves? Gay ones, specifically Daddy's Roommate and Pastor, I Am Gay. Of course. Letting this woman anywhere near the White House is the worst idea I've ever heard.

*A token of my love and affection to anyone who can guess which three.