Category Archives: made into movies

Books that were made into movies.

November 19, 2009 · 12:00 am

Review 45: To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

What is there to say about this book that hasn’t already been said? I mean, it’s one of the most critically acclaimed novels of the last fifty years, and is considered a classic of American literature. It’s required reading in nearly every high school in America – and at the same time it’s a regular guest on the American Library Association’s “Most Banned Books” list.

A lot of minds, many better than mine, have turned their thoughts to this book, and have no doubt picked every last shred of meaning, metaphor and symbolism from it. So what’s left for me to say about it? Sure, I can talk about how it’s a classic coming-of-age tale, about how Scout Finch, a young girl living in a small, insular town in Alabama, saw her world shaped and changed by the goodness and integrity of her father, Atticus. We can look at the family dynamics of the story – a family without a mother, save for the surrogate matriarch roles played first by the maid, Calpurnia, and then by Aunt Alexandria, Atticus’ sister. We can analyze how the power in that family structure changes and shifts, and ultimately rests in Atticus’ capable hands.

Or we can look at the elements of symbolism in the book – the mad dog, foreshadowing the vicious Bob Ewell, whose hatred for Atticus costs him his life. Or the title, as we wonder throughout the book, “Who is the mockingbird?” Is it a person, even, or could it be something as intangible as Innocence? Of course we find out, in the end – it’s the shut-in neighbor, Boo Radley, who must be protected as a mockingbird would be.

And who is Boo, anyway? What does he mean to the America of the 1930s, in which the book was set? Or the 1960s, in which it was published? Or the Aughts, in which I’m reading it? Is he a metaphor for America at that time, too consumed by its troubles to venture out, yet willing to protect those it holds dear, an intentional foreshadowing of the Great War that lays only six years in the future? Or is he the ghostly antithesis of Atticus Finch, a man who does the right thing only once in his life, rather than every day?

It’s also a defense of the American legal system. The trial of Tom Robinson is hopelessly unwinnable, but Atticus knows that it is something to be marveled at that Tom even gets a chance. A thin chance, yes, but in so many other times and places, Tom would have just been killed right on the scene of his alleged crime, and no one would have done anything about it. But in America, the courts are the great levelers. Even a black man, who in that time and that place was a citizen only on sufferance, can still have his day in court. He had very little chance, but with a lawyer like Atticus, who believes wholeheartedly in the purity of Law, he had a better chance than most. “Our courts have their faults,” he says, “as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levellers, and in our courts all men are created equal.” Without this system, however, even a man of Atticus’ talents and integrity wouldn’t have been able to help Tom Robinson.

I guarantee – someone, somewhere has thought about all of these things, and has probably written more about them than I ever could. And with more passion and skill. So I’ll just write about what the book made me think, and hope I can put that into words that sound good to all of you.

I want to be Atticus Finch when I grow up.

As much as the book may be narrated by Scout, and Boo Radley haunts it like an unquiet ghost, the story is about Atticus – a good man in a small town who tries to do everything he can to make his part of the world a better place.

The central event of this book, which echoes from first page to last, is a trial in which Atticus has to do an impossible thing – defend a black man from charges of raping a white woman. By taking this case, Atticus knowingly risks his reputation, his safety and his life, as well as those of his family. It’s hard for us here, in an age when the United States has a black President, to truly understand just how racially broken the country used to be. Not that everything is hunky-dory now – anyone who claims that the election of President Obama somehow solved the problem of race in America has a lot of re-thinking to do. But it was so much worse back then.

Atticus Finch is a man with an unshakable moral compass, who knows the difference between right and wrong and how to make sure he does the right thing. He knows that he is a role model not only for his children, but for the people of his town – in several parts of the book, he’s likened to a savior.”We are so rarely called on to be Christians,” says Miss Maudie, a rather progressive neighbor of the Finch’s, “but when we are, we’ve got men like Atticus to go for us.” He exhorts his children to spend time in another’s skin, to really look at the world from their perspective, in order to understand why they do what they do. He values intellect and reason over emotion and fighting, but is not afraid to take action when it’s absolutely necessary. He bears an immense responsibility on his shoulders, not only for the people of his town – black and white – but for his family, that he may raise his children to be good people as well.

Probably my favorite Atticus moment in the book comes in chapter eleven, with the redemption of Mrs. Dubose. A cantankerous old woman living down the street, Mrs. Dubose is a terror to Scout and her brother Jem. She eventually provokes Jem into a fury, whereupon he destroys her camellias, the punishment for which is that Jem must go to her home and read to her for a month. He does, as he’s Atticus’ son and therefore keeps his promises, but it’s not a pleasant duty. She drifts off into nearly comatose states by the end of their reading sessions, which last longer and longer as what Jem believes must be further punishment for his crime.

It is only later, after Mrs. Dubose dies, that Atticus reveals the real reason Jem was sent to go read to her – so he could help her overcome a crippling morphine addiction before she died. She wanted to die free of her burden, and Atticus wanted his son to see what it means to truly be brave. It was important that Jem understand, before the trial got into full swing, that, “It’s when you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.” Mrs. Dubose won, thanks to Atticus, and his son learned what it means to be brave.

The only real criticism I can think of with regards to Atticus Finch is that he’s too good. It’s hard to find a flaw in the man, other than his nearly unbending insistence on doing the right thing, even if it should put his family in danger. He’s kind of like Superman in that regard – his greatest flaw is his unwillingness to compromise on what is right, even if it hurts those close to him.

Of all the flaws one could have, though, that’s not too bad.

I am reminded that one of the greatest questions of philosophy is “Why should we do good?” Atticus knows why. Because it’s the only thing he can do and still live with himself. He doesn’t need to justify what he does to anyone else. He doesn’t need to convince anyone that he’s doing what is right. He only needs to convince himself. As long has he can look his children in the eyes, he knows that what he’s doing is right, and that’s all he requires. And perhaps he is an idealist, yes. But he’s an idealist who lives up to his ideals, who lives through those ideals every day. He knows that what he does won’t necessarily change his little town, much less the world, but he does it anyway. Because that’s what living a good and honest life means, and that’s what I learned from Atticus Finch.

What surprises me, honestly, is that this is the only book Harper Lee’s written. It’s so rich, so gripping, just so damn good that it’s hard to believe she never had another story she wanted to tell. Her entry in Wikipedia says that she’s written some essays and started a few novels, but never finished them, which saddens me. But then, perhaps some writers have countless stories in them – some of them great, some of them not – and others just have one. And in Lee’s case, it was a humdinger.

If you’re going into high school and you’re reading this – you will be required to read this book at some point. I know how irritating it is to be forced to read a book, and I know that anything an adult tells you is good must automatically suck. Nevertheless, I’m going to ask you to trust me on this one and give it a fair shake. There’s a lot to learn from this book, and it’ll stick with you for years.

If you haven’t read this one since high school – read it again. It’s far better than you remember.

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“The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”
– Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird
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To Kill a Mockingbird on Wikipedia
Harper Lee on Wikipedia
To Kill a Mockingbird on Amazon.com
To Kill a Mockingbird on Wikiquote
To Kill a Mockingbird at the Encyclopedia of Alabama
The Boo Radleys on Wikipedia

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Filed under children, classics, coming of age, family, fathers, fiction, Harper Lee, made into movies, murder, racism

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September 10, 2009 · 12:00 am

Review 35: The Andromeda Strain


The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton passed away recently, so I thought he would be a good choice to read. I know there are people who have problems with Crichton – his later books revealed some distinct political leanings and display very clear biases, the most obvious of these being State of Fear, in which he attacks the environmentalist movement’s support of global warming. His attacks are blatant, and even though the novel is said to be a good read, it’s burdened by the obvious slant of the author.

It’s tough to know what to do with authors who inject their own personal morality into their works. Some of them, like Heinlein, do it in such a way that it’s not a distraction – it’s Heinlein. Others, such as Orson Scott Card, are so vocal in their political opinions that they risk losing a large portion of their readership. In this situation, you have to make a decision: read the book for the story or read the book for the author’s politics? Or don’t?

I take the same route here that I do with actors, musicians and other artists who make their political and social views known. I disregard those views and just judge their work on its own merits. It’s not that hard to do, really….

Anyway, I remember seeing this movie for the first time, and it scared the hell out of me. Not in the same way that my childhood slasher films scared me, of course. In those, there was always someone – Jason, Freddie, Michael – who was lurking behind curtains, waiting to turn you into steak tartar if you were foolish enough to have sex in the camp counsellor’s cabin. But at least they were human (sort of), and they had motivations, however insane these motivations were.

In this book, we are not facing a psychopath with a chainsaw. It’s something more terrible and more impossible to deal with.

The premise – The US space program, in an attempt to figure out exactly what is lurking in the upper atmosphere, has been sending up special satellites – the Scoop satellites – to sample the air up there and then return so that scientists can do what they do best. The theory was that if we were to encounter extraterrestrial life, the odds are that it would be some sort of simple organism rather than a four-foot grey humanoid.

People like Carl Sagan seemed to support this theory, and Crichton makes a very good case for it through his characters. Radio waves attenuate, even light pulses can’t last forever – but build an organism that can survive indefinitely in space? That is an excellent way of telling the rest of the universe that you’re out there. A microbe needs a lot less to keep it going than your average movie E.T., so it would be reasonable to assume that it would make an excellent message in a bottle in a vast and harsh cosmos.

Back to the book – most of these satellites went up and came down without incident, but one – Scoop VII – had some unexpected problems and crashed in the American southwest, just outside a small town called Piedmont. The good citizens of Piedmont, wanting to know what it was, brought it home to have a look.

Within eighteen hours, nearly everyone in Piedmont was dead. The lesson? Never go near something that comes screaming out of the sky. Yes, it might give you super-powers, but odds are that it’ll kill you.

The government, always looking for the worst case scenario, had planned for this, and put Project Wildfire in action. Wildfire called for a team of scientists with varied backgrounds to be brought to an isolated lab in Nevada. Scoop would be brought there, and they would attempt to unravel the mystery of what killed the people of Piedmont.

The story sounds pretty simple, and Crichton makes a point of saying that, ideally, there should be no story to tell. Wildfire facilities are insanely well-guarded, and the design of the complex itself is nearly foolproof against something escaping – to the point that, if the facility becomes insecure, it will be vaporized in a nuclear explosion.

As usual, Crichton is meticulous in his science. The book has a bibliography in the back with 58 references to justify his use of x-ray crystallography, culture growth, electron microscopes, and other theories. The point is, he is saying that the incident in The Andromeda Strain could happen. Maybe. And it is possible that, despite our best planning and efforts, we might not be able to stop it.

This brings up the question: is this really science fiction? Well, yes, because A) it’s fiction and B) the story is dependent on the science. But it’s not science fiction in the way that we’re familiar, since very little of it is actually fictional. Most of the technology is extant, and the tech that is a little more outlandish is certainly within our ability to create. The only thing that is really speculative is the Andromeda organism itself. And even given that, the story is not so much about the organism as it is about the race to figure out what the organism is – it’s about the scientists, not the science.

Where the actual story comes in is with the introduction of Mistakes. A simple malfunction in a piece of communications equipment. A medical problem that is hidden until it is too late. Miscommunication and assumption abound, which is what makes this book interesting. Otherwise, it would just be a matter of the scientists trying to figure out what this wee beastie that hitched a ride on Scoop can do, and why. Perhaps it’s not so much science fiction as it is scientific fiction. If that makes any sense….

Indeed, the silly humans are saved from worldwide extermination by virtue of the microorganism’s own nature, oddly enough. This isn’t The Stand – Crichton didn’t set out to write an End of the World story. He wanted to talk about science and what might happen if an unknown pathogen should appear from the darkest regions of space.

As I said before, this is what makes it so terrifying. The villain of this story is a bacteria. We don’t know where it comes from, how it works, or why. It has no ambition, no plan. It is not hostile, malicious, or vindictive. It can’t be bargained with or tricked.

Perhaps that is why disease stories are so interesting. On the one hand, they point out how vulnerable we really are to something we have never encountered. On the other hand, they show how sometimes, just sometimes, we can avert disaster with the ingenuity that keeps popping up in humanity.

So – it’s well-written and well-researched, not to mention a sci-fi classic. The movie’s pretty good as well, and sticks relatively close to the book. Either are recommended.

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“He [Stone] often argued that human intelligence was more trouble than it was worth. It was more destructive than creative, more confusing than revealing, more discouraging than satisfying, more spiteful than charitable.”
– Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain
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Michael Crichton on Wikipedia
The Andromeda Strain on Wikipedia
The Andromeda Strain on Amazon.com
NASA’s Exobiology Branch

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August 13, 2009 · 12:00 am

Review 31: The Iliad

The Iliad by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles

Sing to me, O Muse, of a long damn poem,
which saddled the backs of many a Freshman English Major before me
and brought the mist of term papers down around our eyes

Can you tell me, O Muse, of the deeds done in this book
in less time than it takes to fight the actual war
in which the blood of many a legendary, some say mythical, figure
was spilt and lost, fed into the hungry earth of Troy?
Sing to me of feasting and fighting and the filching of treasure
of Dawn and her Rosy Fingers as they greet the tenth year
of the War of the Acheans (which are also known as Greeks,
but only by the terribly uneducated)
against the great city-state of Troy.
Tell me of ten years’ warfare, the great hollow ships
ranged against the shining walls of Ilium!

Of all the Acheans, only one could be the Hero of this war
a man spawned of a Goddess, a son of the oceans and a scourge
on all who oppose him, who would flee and crap their singlets
at the very sight of his blazing armor.
As a three year-old child sits in his room and sulks
upon not receiving a bicycle for his birthday,
ignoring all the treasure heaped upon him by otherwise doting parents,
crying to the walls and his toys in the closet
and raging against the injustices of those older than he,
so does Achilles, the greatest of Egos in the Achean army
sit in his tent and whine about Briseis,
the woman he won in warfare, only to have her taken by Agamemnon.

“Help me Mother, goddess of the ocean’s foam,” he cried.
“Agamemnon’s pissing me off and I want him to suffer for it!”
And so did his doting mother appeal to Zeus,
he of the Thunderbolt Libido with a Thing For The Ladies
and the King of Gods did make it so,
giving the troops of Troy and their leader, Hector, advantage
only to crush them in the end so as to increase
the glory of Achilles.

Who can sing the insanity of this plan, this war?
Should I live a thousand lifetimes, I would wither of age
before I could recount the acts of treachery and pettiness
brought about by gods and men on the blood-soaked plains of Troy.
Would that I had the time to list the dead and dying
the blood and the viciousness of unholy war,
balanced by rare acts of humanity and kindness.
If only I possessed that rarest of gifts, the patience
to list the atrocities of the Gods wrought upon men.
Such was the gift of Homer, to do so long ago
what we cannot, weak as men are now.

Great Agamemnon, whose pride and stubbornness rival Father Zeus
Himself. Achilles, the mighty, the hero who becomes human
only when all that he truly loves is taken from him.
Hector, breaker of horses, the father and defender of a city
doomed from the outset.
Priam, Aged King of Troy, watching his sons die one by one.
The libidinous Paris, whose inability to think
with the right head started all of this,
and Helen, would that she drowned before reaching Troy,
watching the terrible battle from her rooms.
And her rightful husband, the red-haired Menelaus
whose rage brought a thousand ships across the wine-dark seas.
Patrolcus, incapable of following one simple little instruction.
Godlike Telamonian Ajax, clever Odysseus, and aged Nestor
always with a long-winded, vaguely relevant story at hand.
These are the heroes of this play, O Muse.

And there are certainly villains –
those immortal Gods whose every whim costs the lives
of noble mortal men.

White-armed Hera, scheming against her husband
Zeus, who grants the ascendancy of Achilles at the cost
of uncountable Trojan and Achean lives.
Aphrodite and Ares, fighting for Troy,
grey-eyed Athena and Poseidon with his blue hair, urging on the Argives.
All playing their games, and in the end, the same as they began.
For, being deathless Gods, they cannot change
and what cannot change cannot learn.
And so the Gods, whose machinations set this tragedy in motion
escape unscathed during the passage of many a mortal soul
into the dark arms of Hades.
And the mortals, playing parts in Zeus’ puppet show
dying to bring greater glory to Achilles.

Would that I had the time to underscore the glory of this tale
and how centuries of the written word have been built upon it.
Give me the strength, O Gods, to tell of this cornerstone!
As a single oak tree, growing tall and splendid towards the sky,
reaching for the sun and spreading its roots into Demeter’s
fertile earth, put forth leaves whose numbers are unknown to man
so has this epic poem inspired more works than can be counted
by a writer as simple and humble as myself.
So reach out, dear Reader, reach out and find this tale,
and as a vast tank holds enough rainwater to replenish
fields and fields of fecund earth, bringing forth
crops to feed people by the thousands,
so will you become a repository of literature and history
and be able to show the world just how utterly
utterly
cool you really are.

Come with me, O Muse. I need a drink.

———————————————-
“And now as the armies clashed at one strategic point,
they slammed their shields together, pike scraped pike
with the grappling strength of fighters armed in bronze
and their round shields’ bosses pounded hide-to-hide
and the thunder of struggle roared and rocked the earth.
Screams of men and cries of triumph breaking in one breath,
fighters killing, fighters killed, and the ground streamed blood.”
Homer, The Iliad (8:71-77)
———————————————-

Homer on Wikipedia
The Iliad on Wikipedia
The Trojan War on Wikipedia
The Iliad on Amazon.com

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August 6, 2009 · 12:00 am

Review 30: Fight Club


Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Well, now I reckon y’all have seen the movie, so there’s probably not a whole lot that you need to know about this book.

You know Tyler Durden.

He’s the Id, the unchained spirit that wants what he wants and he wants it now. He’s the voice in your head that tells you that everything is worthless, that chaos, death and the end of civilization would be better than anything our so-called “society” could ever create. He’s the one standing over your left shoulder, whispering “Burn it all down. It’ll be fun.” He acts in secret, he has an army of minions, and he has a plan.

Oh yes, you know Tyler Durden.

The narrator of this dark and strange cautionary tale knows Tyler all too well, and tells us of how he and Tyler tried to change the world. It all started very simply – with basement fight clubs where men could let out their rage and frustration on each other. There were very few rules to fight club, but that was okay. Rules were, in fact, the problem. The regimented society in which we live imposes constant rules on us – social rules, cultural rules, corporate rules – that tell us who to be and what to think. The rules of our society have sapped us of our strength and purpose, making us soft. Pliable. Weak.

But Tyler’s plan doesn’t end there – the fight clubs morph into Project Mayhem, a well-oiled anarchist movement, determined to bring down the very fundamentals of our society. With an army at his beck and call, Tyler is sure that his plan will succeed.

It’s a book with a couple of very powerful messages, one overt and incorrect, the other subtle and accurate. The overt message is Tyler’s message – we are a generation with no cause, no purpose. Our lives are governed by what we buy and what we wear, and none of us will die having done anything with our lives. In order to be Real Men, we need to strip away the veneer of civilization – our Ikea furniture, our make-work jobs and our cornflower blue neckties – and rediscover the inner core of ourselves. The brutal, unafraid, unapologetic beast that is Man.

This, to no one’s surprise, appealed to a lot of people when the film came out because it’s a very believable world view. Those of Gen X and beyond are reminded over and over again that the generations before us were the ones who actually did things. The Baby Boomers got herded into the slaughterhouse that was Vietnam, toppled a President, faced down the chaos of the Sixties and fought to change the world. Their parents, of course, were the Greatest Generation – a label that I have come to despise – who fought Hitler and freed Europe. Their parents struggled through the Depression, and their parents fought in the trenches of World War One.

What have we done? Until the beginning of the 21st Century, how had we suffered? What had we sacrificed? Not a whole lot, and I think a lot of us secretly believe that we’re not only not pulling our weight in the world, but that since we have not suffered, we’re not really adult. Our miseries have not been those born of chaos, war and destruction. Ours have been tiny, personal tragedies that are, in their way, insignificant.

I can see where Tyler Durden is coming from on this point – I do sometimes look around me and ask, “Where are our great challenges, our Normandy or our moon landing?” And I fear that without these milestones, my generation will never really be taken seriously.

Unfortunately, this is about where most folks stopped thinking and decided, “Shit, man, he’s right! I wanna start a fight club!” And short-lived fight clubs sprang up all over the country, lasting about as long as it took for people to realize that while Brad Pitt on the movie screen can get beaten within an inch of his life and still look cool, a normal human cannot. They missed the subtle message because it wasn’t one that they really wanted to hear.

The book is not about the triumph of nihilism over a consumer-driven culture. It’s not about being a Real Man. It’s not about being a unique snowflake or a space monkey.

It’s about overcoming both the desire to destroy society and the desire to be completely subsumed by it. It’s about the need for purpose, and the need for connection with other people, and what can happen when one is deprived of those things. Tyler doesn’t show up because the narrator is rootless or bored – Tyler shows up because the narrator has forsaken people for things. He has replaced personal achievement with material gain, and that’s not a very fulfilling way to live.

It is a cautionary tale for our generation – you are not your tragedies. You are not the club you belong to. You are not your scars. You are neither worthless nor undeserving.

You are what you make yourself to be, no matter what Tyler Durden wants.

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“If you could either be God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose?”
– The Narrator, Fight Club
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Fight Club on Wikipedia
Chuck Palahniuk on Wikipedia
Fight Club on Amazon.com
Official Chuck Palahniuk Fan Site

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May 21, 2009 · 12:00 am

Review 19: Day of the Triffids


The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

I have a long fondness for Apocalyptic novels. The Stand was one of my early favorites from junior high school, and I really enjoyed its cousin by Robert McCammon, Swan Song. There’s something about the End Of The World that just grabs me and won’t let go. Maybe it’s the thought that, should the world end, I would be one of the survivors. The rule of law would break down, all shackles of modern life would be loosed, and I would finally be free to choose my own destiny. Which, knowing me, would probably be very short and end up with me getting shot by some kind of Mad Max pirate tribe.

I can say with some certainty, however, that in this book’s scenario I would not be coming out on top. Because I love astronomy.

Let me explain. This end of the world came in two parts, at least one of which was definitely of our own doing.

It started with a comet. Or a meteor shower. Or something, but whatever it was, it lit up the sky. Green streaks of light brightened the night skies around the world, and everyone who could go and watch them did so. I’m a sucker for a natural light show, so I probably would have spent the night watching the skies and enjoying myself. And I would have woken up stone blind the next day.

That in itself – the vast, vast majority of the human population on Earth being blind – would have been a pretty good apocalypse. Wyndham describes rashes of suicides, accidental deaths and, of course, murder in just the first few days. Without vision, the carefully crafted world we’ve made kind of falls apart. But it would have been survivable. Co-operation groups spring up pretty quickly, both voluntary and otherwise, where sighted people assist the blind in surviving. It would have been tough, yes, but not impossible, for the world to go on. If not for the Triffids.

While we don’t know what caused the green comet, the Triffids were definitely our fault. The product of bioengineering gone haywire, the Triffids are ambulatory carnivorous plants with a poison sting that can kill a grown man from ten feet away. And while they’re not intelligent, they are remarkably… aware. They follow sound, they learn and co-operate in hunting, and are very difficult to eradicate.

But by themselves, they’re manageable. Their stingers can be removed, even though they grow back eventually, and they make interesting garden plants. And they’re immensely profitable – the oil derived from a Triffid outdoes every other kind of vegetable oil available. In normal times, the Triffids are under human control and benefit humanity greatly.

The two problems, when put together, make for a truly terrifying end – an unstoppable, unthinking army of carnivorous plants, finally freed from their shackles. A world in chaos, half-blind and not sure if they have to save themselves, or if someone else will do it for them. And an exciting story.

The message of this book is pretty clear, and Wyndham wastes no time in making sure we get it, lest the adventure part of the book get bogged down. Don’t mess with nature. That’s pretty much it. Don’t mess with nature, because nature will inevitably come ’round and mess right back with you.

Wyndham has created a brave new world for us, with a wide variety of characters who all react to their new situation in different – and realistic – ways. Starting in London, we meet a diverse cast – from the girl who believes that the Americans will save her to the man who believes that polygamy is the way to a brighter future, everyone has an idea on how to survive. The narrator, Bill Masen, knows just enough to get the reader up to speed, but not nearly enough to know if he’s even going to make it out of this alive. With the help of other sighted survivors, he is determined to make a stand, not only for England, but for the human race as a whole.

But first they have to deal with the Triffids….

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“When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere. ”
– John Wyndham, Day of the Triffids
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Day of the Triffids at Wikipedia
John Wyndham at Wikipedia
Day of the Triffids at Amazon.com

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May 7, 2009 · 12:00 am

Review 17: The Stand

The Stand by Stephen King

It’s hard to know where to begin when writing about this book, probably because I work under the assumption that everyone has read it. I mean,. I’ve probably owned at least four different copies over the years, and it occupies a permanent place on my bookshelf. I can’t imagine anyone not having read it. But I guess that’s what everyone thinks about their favorite books, so I’ll fill in those of you who haven’t.

It’s the end of the world. Not in the horrible confluence of blindness and carnivorous plants, or in the fiery desolation of nuclear war. The world dies in a more unpleasant way than that, and it all begins in Project Blue – a US military lab in the southwest. There they’ve built the greatest plague mankind has ever known, a shapeshifting flu virus that is 99.4% communicable and 100% lethal. Its intended use was probably against the Soviets or some other enemy state, but… Things fall apart, the center cannot hold, as Yeats said. And on June 13th, 1990, the superflu got out.

It was carried by Charles Campion and his family, spread throughout the southwest until Campion died in a gas station in Arnette, Texas. From there it hopped into the men gathered at the station, who passed it on to nearly everyone they met.

By June 27th, most of America was dead. And thanks to the final command of the man in charge of Project Blue, the virus was spread around the world as well. By Independence Day, the population of the world – that which by some strange genetic luck was immune – was reduced to less than the pre-plague population of California.

Of course, not everyone who was immune escaped unscathed. There were accidents, mishaps and murders that probably brought the number down, but not by much. Scattered survivors struggled to understand why they lived when so many had died, and started to seek out others like them.

And then came the dreams. An ancient woman, living in a cornfield. She radiates goodness and compassion (and still makes her own biscuits). Mother Abagail is the beacon of hope for those who see her in their dreams. And then there’s the other, the Dark Man, the Walkin’ Dude, whose shadow brings madness and whose gaze brings death. He is Randall Flagg, a man whose time has come ’round at last. Just as Mother Abagail attracts the good and strong, so does Flagg attract the weak and frightened. Around these two do the remains of America come together. And neither one can let the other exist without a fight….

What keeps bringing me back to this book? Well, a lot of things. For one, the writing. King has said that he’s a little disturbed about The Stand being the fans’ favorite – it means he did his best work thirty years ago. Not entirely true, I think, although I am hard pressed to say which of his other books exceeds it. King’s sense of scale as a writer is outstanding. We get into our characters dreams, in their innermost secret thoughts, and then a few pages later are presented with an overview of what’s happening around the nation. It’s like being able to go, in Google Maps, from someone’s bedroom all the way out into space. He dances between characters smoothly, so just when you get to the point where you’re thinking, ‘Yeah, but what’s Flagg doing?” he brings you there.

And speaking of the characters, they’re people who will stay with you long after you finish the book. The quiet confidence of Stu Redman, the single-minded madness of the Trashcan Man, Larry Underwood’s late maturity, Lloyd Henreid’s devotion, Fran Goldsmith’s determination…. Each character rings true. Even the ones who really shouldn’t have ended up the way they did – and I’m thinking of Harold and Nadine here – you can’t help but find bits of them to love. Had they been strong enough, Harold and Nadine never would have gone as bad as they did, and I think even King kind of had a hard time making them do what he wanted.

Underlying all this, of course, is a kind of Old Testament religiosity. The God of Mother Abigail is not the kind and friendly God of the New Testament, He is the angry one of the Old. He is the God who will gladly wipe out nearly all of mankind to prove a point, and will make a 108 year-old woman walk into the desert by herself because she’s getting a little too uppity. In this world, at least, God is most definitely real, even though His purpose is hard to understand.

I could go on. Thesis papers could probably be written about this book, and I reckon they already have been. But that’s not why I do these reviews. I do them because I want y’all to know what’s worth reading.

This book is worth reading.

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“Show me a man or a woman alone and I’ll show you a saint. Give me two and they’ll fall in love. Give me three and they’ll invent the charming thing we call ‘society’. Give me four and they’ll build a pyramid. Give me five and they’ll make one an outcast. Give me six and they’ll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they’ll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.”
– Glen Bateman, The Stand
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The Stand at Wikipedia
Stephen King at Wikipedia
The Stand at Amazon.com

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April 30, 2009 · 12:40 am

Review 16: Watership Down

Watership Down by Richard Adams

This is one of my top five books. Whenever anyone asks me, “What is your favorite book?” this is at or near the top. It was the first adult-length book I read when I was in Elementary school, and I have every intention of getting my hands on a copy for my goddaughter at some point soon. I remember watching the movie when they used to show it annually on CBS, way back in those days beyond recall….

Why should this book, of all the books I’ve ever read in my life, stay so dear to me? I have no idea. Perhaps because, even though its main characters are rabbits, it isn’t a “talking animals” book. Adams didn’t talk down to his readers, and assumed that they were ready to follow Hazel and Fiver wherever they went. And so, unusually for children’s literature, there is violence and loss and true danger in this book. Characters die. Unpleasantly. The rabbits live in fear of mankind and the Thousand, and accomplish great things despite. They do what no rabbit had done before, and find a new world for themselves. And, of course, are forced to fight for it.

Our heroes, you see, are living an idyllic life in a warren in England. They do what rabbits do – eat, sleep, mate, and entertain themselves. But one rabbit, Fiver, can see more clearly than others. He can sense danger, and grasp the shape of the future, and he knows that any rabbit who stays where they are will certainly die. With his brother, Hazel, Fiver and a small group of rabbits leave their home.

They do what rabbits never do – they explore. They go through dense woods and cross streams. They hide among gardens and search for the best place they can find to set up their new warren – a safe place, high in the hills, where they can see all around and the ground is dry. They seek to build a new society, as so many humans have done in our history.

And what’s more, they try to build the best society that they can. The need leadership, yes, but how much? How much freedom should the ordinary rabbit have to live its life? This question becomes more and more important when they meet the cruel General Woundwort, de facto leader of the warren known as Efrafa.

The battle that they have, choosing between personal liberty and the safety of the warren, is emblematic of so many struggles that have gone on in our world, and continue today. Through a tale about rabbits, Adams manages to tell us about ourselves, which is the mark of a great writer.

As cynical as I have become in my years, I still find this story to be honest and true. Adams isn’t trying to make an allegory or grind an axe. He’s trying to tell a good story about hope and perseverance and triumph over adversity, a story with – as Tolkien put it, “applicability” – that we can overlay onto our own lives and experiences. The fact that the main characters are rabbits is incidental.

Well, not really. Another layer to this story is the culture that Adams has created. The stories of Frith and El-ahrairah (which, I’ve just noticed, is misprinted on the first page of the contents in this edition as “El-ahrairah.” Weird) are sometimes deep and meaningful, sometimes fun and silly, but always relevant and rich, in the tradition of oral storytelling. There is a language to the rabbits, which is regularly used throughout the book (and one complete sentence in lapine – Silflay hraka u embleer rah. Memorable….) Adams did a lot of research into the social structure of rabbits and their lifestyles, making it as accurate is it could be….

Anyway, every young person should read this. Hell, older people should read it too. Every time I read the story, it moves me. I can hear the voices of the characters clearly and see what they see. I am inspired by the steadfastness of Hazel, the strength of Bigwig and the resolve of Blackavar. I find qualities in these characters that I would like to possess, and that’s as good a reason as any to love a book.

As a side note, this book is the reason I got into Magic: The Gathering way back in college. For a long time, I thought it was just a stupid card game, with no cultural or imaginative merit. Then I happened across a “Thunder Spirit” card, which had a quote from Watership Down at the bottom:

“It was full of fire and smoke and light and…it drove between us and the Efrafans like a thousand thunderstorms with lightning.”

Still gives me goosebumps.

Anyway, I thought, “Maybe there’s something to this,” and the rest was (very expensive) history….

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“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first, they must catch you, digger, listener, runner. Prince with a swift warning. Be cunning and your people will never be destroyed.”
– Frith, Watership Down
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Watership Down at Wikipedia
Richard Adams at Wikipedia
Watership Down at Amazon.com

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April 16, 2009 · 12:00 am

Review 14: V for Vendetta

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd

There are people who think that comic books are just for kids. They see Superman and Batman and Spider-Man, with their bright costumes and their rather simplistic moral codes and think, “Well, that’s all well and good for children, but as a thinking adult, I need something more.” Some of these folks are lit-snobs, who view any kind of book with pictures as immature. Perhaps they were told that they need to grow up, and have distanced themselves with comics as they have done with their own childhoods. Or perhaps they simply don’t know better….

The point is that while there certainly is a lot of childish dross in comics, there’s also a lot of gold. In the right hands, a great story can be told in any medium, be it print, painting, film, stage, or yes – even comics. In this case, the right hands are those of Alan Moore and David Lloyd.

Moore is considered one of the giants of modern comic books, having penned many a dark and strange tale, ignoring the accepted norms of comic book storytelling in order to tell the weird and off-kilter stories that he wants to tell. In the famous Watchmen, Moore told us about the flaws and imperfections inherent in the heroic ideal. In V for Vendetta, he looks at the flaws and imperfections in our societies and ourselves.

The book is set in an alternate London, a place that Could Have Been. In this world, the worst of our modern nightmares has happened – a nuclear war that ravaged many parts of the world. Europe, Africa, these places were, as the characters put it, “gone.” England survived the turmoil by the skin of its teeth, pulling itself up from chaos and disorder thorough the strength of the new government party, Norsefire.

This government is unapologetically fascist. In the turmoil following the war, they saw the only solution to England’s survival in absolute obedience. And so they built a new England – an England of strict rules and laws, with ears and eyes everywhere. Minorities of all kinds were systematically wiped out from the country. Blacks, Muslims, homosexuals – anyone who didn’t fit into the world view of the new leadership was eliminated, and in many cases just disappeared. The government espouses a doctrine of absolute control over its citizenry, seeing that as the only defense against the horrors that the world had just barely survived.

But, for all that, England prevailed. People were safe in their homes, as long as they followed the rules. They were entertained with radio and television, given plenty of amusements and a healthy dose of fear to keep them in line. The government of England seemed almighty, governed by their fascist ideology and a massive supercomputer, known simply as Fate. Nothing, they thought, could challenge their supremacy.

Until V arrived.

With no name, and no face besides the Guy Fawkes mask he wore, the terrorist known as V began to cut a swathe through the ruling elite. All that is known of him is that he had been a prisoner in one of the concentration camps set up by the government. In that place, terrible experiments were done on the human detritus of society – experiments with truly horrific results. Whether V’s incredible mind and physical ability were because of those experiments or despite them, we will never know. All we do know is that he survived, and with a single-minded determination bordering on madness, he sought revenge.

With public demonstrations of terrorism and pyrotechnics, he took it upon himself to wrest control of the city from those who had locked it down. His goal is freedom for everyone, anarchy in its truest sense, and he will not be stopped.

As the title suggests, this is a vendetta on many levels. It is revenge for what was done to V in the prison camps where they took all the “undesirables,” and for what was done to England by its new rulers. V is a man with nothing to lose, and everything to gain – not just for himself, but for his country.

This is a book about freedom on many levels. It’s about political freedom, which makes it especially relevant today, and it’s no coincidence that the film emerged during the headiest days of the Bush administration. Following the attacks of September 11th, Americans were afraid, and the government – like the government of this book – was all too willing to harness that fear in exchange for control. People were told to watch what they say about the President, the government or the troops. Television pundits and spokespeople demanded that criticism be shut down, and that those who disagreed with what the country was doing were branded traitors.

Fortunately, we got through those frightened times, but even today, those who would stay in power use fear to keep people in line. Fear of death, fear of immigrants, fear of gays – fear of The Other – are the first weapons they use to command obedience from their citizenry.

And most people fall in line very easily. It’s not surprising, really. Most people, when they’re afraid, look to someone to take care of them, to protect them and to tell them what to do. It’s a natural impulse, a natural need of human beings. But V exhorts us to move past that. He reminds us that, in a quote from the film, “People should not be afraid of their governments – governments should be afraid of their people.” While our government never reached the depths of the one in this book, it is something that all citizens of all countries should remember.

The book is also about personal freedom. We are all of us prisoners, really – prisoners of our societies and prisoners of ourselves. We are held down by our preconceptions , our doubts and our illusions; our own minds and our beliefs about what others expect of us are what keep us locked into a prison whose bars we cannot even see. V freed himself from his own literal and spiritual confinement to go from prisoner to a societal force, bursting free in an explosion of flame and destruction. He meets a young woman, Evey Hammond, and brings her into his world – partly to be his accomplice, but also to show her how to be free. Her freedom comes at a cost too, enduring the greatest nightmare of a citizen of a fascist society. But she survives, and finds her freedom in the rain and the dark.

The lesson that V teaches us, whether as individuals or societies, is twofold: we hold ourselves prisoner, and there is no more vicious or cruel jailer than ourselves. And that freedom is frightening – it is wild and uncontrolled, and never comes without a price. But that price is well worth paying.

To be honest, it took me a long time to finally enjoy this book. When it came out originally, I was big into super-hero books, and V struck me as just goofy. Why would someone wear such a dumb mask? I thought. And that hat? The cloak is okay, but…. Of course, I knew nothing of Guy Fawkes at the time, so perhaps my ignorance of British history held me back, but still, I was very impatient with it. Also, the art was much rougher and darker than I was used to. The usual four-color palette and clean inks of super-hero comics are not to be found in this book. Instead there are washes of pale purple and yellow and green, with heavy inks and faces full of sorrow and pain.

In other words, it was not what I expected from a comic, and so I gave it a wide berth. And that was probably for the best, since I think that having a better idea of politics and society makes the story that much more interesting. It’s a complex and multi-leveled tale that deserves a thoughtful read, and asks a lot from its reader, and if you expect to get through it without doing some thinking of your own, then you’ll be sorely disappointed.

That is, however, the mark of a great work – does it make you think? Does it come back to you later, when you’re watching the news or reading the newspaper? When you see a story about the pervasiveness of security cameras and think, “I wish V were here,” then Alan Moore and David Lloyd have truly done their jobs.

V isn’t the hero we expect from comics. He isn’t the hero we’d necessarily want, either. But a person like V is necessary sometimes – someone who values freedom above all else. Let us hope that we never need him.

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“Noise is relative to the silence preceding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap.
Our masters have not heard the people’s voice for generations, Evey… and it is much, much louder than they care to remember.”
– V, V for Vendetta
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V for Vendetta on Wikipedia
V for Vendetta on Wikiquote
V for Vendetta at DC Comics
Alan Moore on Wikipedia
David Lloyd on Wikipedia
V for Vendetta on Amazon.com
Guy Fawkes on Wikipedia

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March 5, 2009 · 1:23 am

Review 08: Watchmen

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

What with the movie on its way, I thought it’d be time to go through the book again. And, as always, it was a great pleasure to read.

This is a graphic novel that has an immense impact on comics history. It’s considered to be one of the most important works in the genre in, well, ever. Read any analysis of Watchmen and you’ll read that it revolutionized comics. It changed everything, they say.

They’re right.

Before I get to the actual story – and it’s a formidable story – I want to address the immense technical achievement that is evident in this book. Look at any panel, any page and you can spend a long time just admiring the artistry that has emerged from the Moore-Gibbons partnership. The words and the images fit together like the finest puzzle pieces, each one reinforcing and supporting the others. There are no unnecessary words, and there are no unnecessary pictures.

Goddamn it’s good. It’s a fantastic piece of work.

Just as much as the technical aspects of the book are a marvel, so is the story. It was written in – and set in – the mid-80s. It took the core genre of the comics industry, superheroes, and bent them to reality’s will. These were not the iconic, ageless figures of Batman and Superman, people whose hearts and intentions were pure and who never aged. The superheroes – or “costumed adventurers,” more appropriately – were very, very human. Not only did they age, but they made mistakes. They lied, they failed, they gave up. They were, with one notable exception, human, and their reasons for doing what they did were also very human.

It’s tempting to say, “These characters are us,” because they’re not, but they’re still a lot closer to us than traditional superheroes are. And this was especially true in the mid-80s. The Darkening of comics hadn’t begun yet, and it was probably Watchmen that kicked it off. Suddenly, after decades of two-dimensional storytelling and Manichean moral codes, the idea of heroes with ethical failings, personality problems and a faulty moral compass flooded the market. Unfortunately, they were inferior copies of an exceptional original.

Anyway, the story. The world in 1985 is a different place. The rise of the costumed adventurer had a big impact on the social fabric of the United States, and the Cold War has reached levels of tension that nearly break the world in two. America owns a superweapon in the person of Jonathan Osterman, also known as the nearly godlike Doctor Manhattan, but even he can’t stop the political super-powers from the intractable mess they have created. Everyone can feel it, the great burning and the end of the world. Everyone knows it’s coming.

And then someone kills The Comedian.

The death of this adventurer-turned-mercenary sets off a chain reaction that leads to the discovery of a horrific plan to save the world. People who believe themselves to be heroes have to decide what it means to do good when there are no good choices left to make.

It starts off as a murder mystery with hints of conspiracy and ends with a bang, as well as a deep moral quandary – do the ends justify the means, and if so, how far can we take that argument?

There are points to criticize the book, if you want to. One that my friend Joe mentioned is that, for all that the main characters are supposed to be heroes, they’re utterly un-heroic. They’re the antithesis of what a comic-book hero is supposed to be: morally sure and above reproach. Any mistakes that they make, even the ones that result in tragic consequences, should make them more heroic in the end. That’s what makes characters like Spider-Man and Superman such a pleasure to read. We know that, even if they screw up, they’ll ultimately do the right thing.

The same can’t be said for the people in this book. Rorschach is a homicidal existentialist, Ozymandias is a megalomaniac, Doctor Manhattan is a detached nihilist, sort of, and Nite Owl is a pudgy guy in an owl costume. These people are not, by and large, people that you can cheer for. They’re not people you can look up to, mainly because they’re just like us. They’re flawed, very deeply flawed, and we expect our heroes to be better than that.

So, it is possible that you will dislike each and every character in the book, and I can’t blame you for that. Still, it’s worth your time to read, even if it’s just to admire the technical ability of Moore and Gibbons. As for the movie, I can only pray that they do it right. I have a high tolerance for adaptation – and I know there’s no way the entire comic can be fit into a movie – so I will give the filmmakers some leeway. But I pray that they do it right….

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“Somebody has to do it, don’t you see? Somebody has to save the world…”
– Captain Metropolis, Watchmen
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Watchmen at Wikipedia
Watchmen at Wikiquote
Watchmen annotations
Watchmen movie website
Watchmen at Amazon.com

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February 12, 2009 · 2:46 am

Review 05: The Princess Bride


The Princess Bride by William Goldman

If you haven’t read this book, then all I can tell you is to go out, get it, and read it. Now. Don’t bother with the rest of this review, you’ll thank me later. It has:

Fencing.
Fighting.
Torture.
Poison.
True Love.
Hate.
Revenge.
Giants.
Hunters.
Good men.
Bad men.
Beautifulest ladies.
Snakes.
Spiders.
Beasts of all natures and descriptions.
Pain.
Death.
Brave men.
Coward men.
Strongest men.
Chases.
Escapes.
Lies.
Truths.
Passion.
Miracles.

For a start.

It’s one of the greatest love/action/revenge stories ever abridged by a modern author. Well, it seems that Mr. Goldman felt that the original story, as written by the immortal S. Morganstern, was a little too dry for public consumption, as well as damaging to treasured childhood memories, so he went through it and put together this “good parts” version, and the world is a better place for it. [1]

Of course, the big gag is that there never was an original version of the book. There never was an S. Morganstern, the greatest of the Florinese writers. Goldman’s father may have read books to him as a child, but he never read this book to him. The entire thing is a fiction, beginning to end, but Goldman sells it really well. He tells the tale of how he blossomed as a boy – going from being a sports-obsessed disappointment to a ravenous bookworm, all thanks to this book. He talks about trying to give the same gift to his son, who manages to make it through one chapter before giving up in exhaustion. He talks about the great shock of discovering that his father had done something utterly brilliant – he had skipped the dull bits and left the exciting parts intact.

Knowing that all of this is false certainly doesn’t detract from the story. It’s a story about a story, and the effect that a story can have on a young mind. Or any mind, for that matter. It’s about how stories can teach us lessons that only later we understand – such as how life is not fair – and how stories can change us in ways that we never expected. It’s about our relationship with fiction, and with the world around us. In his fictional childhood, Goldman learned more about the world from the process of watching the story unfold than he did from the story itself. And so this book is a story about stories. The actual story is just bonus.

Which brings me, of course, to the film. Let me say that this is one of the very, very few instances where I will put the movie up on par with the book. 99.9999 repeating percent of the time, the book is better than the movie. This is one instance where they are equal in nearly every measure. I’m sure a lot of this has to do with the fact that Goldman wrote the screenplay for the film, so not only is the story intact, but a great deal of the dialogue is almost verbatim from the book. It was gold in print and gold on the screen. The hardest part about reading the book is trying not to hear Andre the Giant, Christopher Guest, Robin Wright and all the other fine actors and actresses in your head as you read.

So, whether you read the book or see the movie, you’re in for a treat. And as you read, just remember the books that molded you into who you are today. Think about the stories that taught you life’s lessons before life got around to doing it. Think about them and appreciate them, and remember that every book is a lesson, one way or another….

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“I’m so stupid. Inigo has not lost to the man in black, he has defeated him. And to prove it he has put on all the man in black’s clothes and masks and hoods and boots and gained eighty pounds.”
– Fezzik, The Princess Bride
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[1] This is a fun type of meta-fiction, writers writing autobiographically about writing about books that never existed. I find it interesting that The Princess Bride can sit comfortably shoulder-to-shoulder with House of Leaves.

The Princess Bride at Wikipedia
William Goldman at Wikipedia
The Princess Bride at Wikiquote
The Princess Bride at Amazon.com

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