Recently Read

Holes
Louis Sachar

Holes is amazing. It's a simple read, but an extremely intelligent one. I read it several years ago when it first came out, and reread it recently when I was finally able to add it to my collection. The book is a puzzle, but it doesn't leave you grasping for straws trying to figure out the answers at the end. It makes sense when it's supposed to, and it plays fair. Funny, heartbreaking, heartening, and tragic. I just really like it a lot. Really really do. Can I recommend it to all of you just by saying it's awesome a whole bunch of times? Cuz it is.

My AP British Literature teacher in high school seemed to be under the somewhat strange opinion that you could watch a movie and it would pretty much be the same thing as reading the book. We didn't read Moby Dick. We watched it. We watched Much Ado About Nothing. In fact, the only book I can recall us reading as a class was Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. But if he had watch Holes I would have been okay with that. It is one of the very best adaptations from book to movie that I have seen. I think the only thing that changes is the weight of the main character. That's it. The rest of it is dead on, and it even tells the story in the movie the same way it is told in the book. And it works. So there you go, two reviews for the price of one.

Movies

A few words on the two newest movies on my recently watched list. Both of them highly anticipated, not only by the public at large, but also by me, who has been a fan of both series for just about as long as I can remember.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
I'm going to try not to give anything away, since the movie really is quite different from the book and most people who have seen the movie without reading the book enjoyed the movie quite a lot. I have read the book over a dozen times and was not nearly as impressed as I wanted to be. I mean, I never have very high expectations for books turned movies (there are only two, no, three, that I can think of off the top of my head that worked well) but when it's your favorite book that they are working on you can't help but get your hopes up.

Here is what they did to Prince Caspian. In the book, a large portion of the story is told in flashback. That wouldn't work well, to have about a third of the movie in flashback, so they broke it up a bit and reordered it. That's fine. I understand that. What I can't stand is when hollywood people decide they have to add action and romance where there wasn't any before and where there was never any need for it. Grr. And they cut out almost all of Aslan. And I can't decide what I think about Reepicheep.

What they did right? Just about the only character they didn't mess up in this movie was Edmund, and, to a lesser extent, Lucy. Which is good, because Edmund is my favorite character in the series. Or possibly ever. He's kinda tied with Puck, which is saying something :)


Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:
This is a movie that has good things and bad things going for it. On the plus side, it's about one of the most beloved movie icons of all time, is in the same series as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and has Harrison Ford in it. On the down side, it takes place after the golden years of Jones' life, is in the same series as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Harrison Ford is getting kind of old. Still cool of course, but it's a bit weird seeing The Hat (TM) on top of a head of gray hair. What does all that mean for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Well, it's better than Temple of Doom (or at least better connected to Raiders and Last Crusade) and Indiana Jones is still Indiana Jones, just a little bit older. It's not as good as Raiders and Last Crusade, but, let's face it, those two are pretty darn hard to beat. Honestly, I don't think this movie even really tried to beat them. It just tried to be good and do the series justice, and I think it did. I laughed a lot. I enjoyed the little iconic moments when they came. I especially appreciated the quality of the special effects. They were at about the same level as the old movies. Which tells you that Steven Spielberg was directing and not George Lucas. And I'll stop there before this turns into a Star Wars prequel rant.

A small thing I loved: Indy saying "I have a bad feeling about this."

Ghost

I've been saving this for a while now, just haven't gotten around to posting it. A month or so ago Nick and I bought a nifty little toy from ThinkGeek.com, our favorite place to shop online. It's called the Phantom Keystroker, and all you have to do to make it work is plug it into a USB port on a computer. The mouse will then begin to move around on it own off and on, and if you have a document open it will begin typing things on it's own. We used it on my dad :)

This is what it types, if left to it's own devices long enough.

5468696e6b4765656b00
124150151156153107145145153
hello there
i am watching you
i see what you are doing
i know all your passwords
you should talk to me more often
i get lonely on this desk
computers have feelings too
how about getting me a pet
a calculator would be nice
or maybe a robot dog
i guess i can order my own
i do know how to surf the internet
and i can type faster than you
resistance is futile
perhaps i'll get some sea monkeys
water might not be a good idea though
it is bad for my electrons
i remember the time you spilled on me
i still get memory glitches from that
next time be more careful
why are you doing this to me?
is it me or do you really not care anymore?
hrrm.
did you hear that?
please stop doing that, i'm getting angry.
am i alive?
it feels like it.
greetings professor falken.
shall we play a game?
how about global thermonuclear war?
a strange game.
the only winning move is not to play.
how about a nice game of chess?
woah! that really hurts.
1337 010101000110100001101001011011100110101101000111011001010110010101101011 3.1415926535897932384
divide by zero error
2.718281828459045235360287471352624975724
syntax error
5468696e6b4765656b00

Recently Read

Small Favor
Jim Butcher

I wasn't going to read this book yet. I was going to patiently wait for it to come out in paperback the same way I'm waiting for several other books to come out in paperback. But I have a husband. And one of the nice things about my husband is that he is often impulsive on my behalf. So he used his Easter money to buy the absolute newest hot off the presses book in the Dresden Files. Now of course it will be at least another year before there is a new one, but we're all up to date.

I honestly can't wait till this series ends. Once it does I'll have great joy in rereading all of the books and finally figuring out who the heck is on whose side and why. Very complicated books. A lot of the motivations are deliberately obscure (especially for all of those pesky fairies). At this point I've resigned myself to the fact that since Harry doesn't know everything yet, we shouldn't either.

One of the things I particularly like about these books is their peculiar ability to balance so precariously between worlds. Not just between the fantastic and the mundane either, but between the spiritual as well. I asked Nick the other day about what Jim Butcher (the author) must think about God. His main character Harry Dresden describes himself as someone who doesn't sit down to chat with God, and Harry figures God prefers it that way. But Harry's best friend Michael is a shining example of what a Christian should be. As Harry tells God in a bit of a rant, "Michael makes you look really good. So you had better live up to it." Just makes me wonder about the author himself. Is he like Harry with a friend like Michael?

Anyway, aside from being even more complicated than usual, this is your standard Dresden book. A rollicking ride with equal parts humor and tragedy. And a really sarcastic main character. You can't go wrong with one of those.

The Last Battle

Final Warning: I've told you to go read the Chronicles of Narnia how many times now? So don't get all upset if you read this post and then find out everything about how the series ends. Stop reading my blog and go read the books. The books are far more interesting than me, I promise.

It seems to me that The Last Battle must be one of the most unique books ever written. How often does an author kill off all of his characters, and the reader sees it as a good thing? But that's what happens here. All of the British characters we love die in a freak railway accident (and their parents too, sucks to be Susan...) and then all of Narnia is torn apart before our very eyes. But of course all of this is really a wonderful thing.

"There was a real railway accident," said Aslan softly. "Your father and mother and all of you are - as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands- dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."

And here I'd like to share a side story about our wedding rings. The inside of my band says "to the end of their days" which is a fraction of "And they lived happily ever after, to the end of their days." which is how Bilbo ends his book in The Lord of the Rings. LotR is Nick's very favorite series of books. The inside of Nick's band says "this is the morning" which is of course from the quote you just read. And the Chronicles of Narnia are my favorite books. And Tolkein and Lewis were wonderful friends throughout their lives. So we think it all works out rather well :)

Here's a question for all of the Bible sleuth's out there. In one of the final scenes we meet Emeth, a Calormene soldier who has gone willingly into the stable to meet Tash, whom he has loved and worshiped and longed for all his life. Instead he meets Aslan and relates this about their meeting:
"But the Glorious One (Aslan) bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with is tongue and said, Son, though art welcome. But I (Emeth) said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of Thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reason of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious ONe and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook( but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou has done to him, for I and he are of such different kinds that no service whihc is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. .... Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek."

A long paragraph, I know, even when it is abridged, and told in the Calormene fashion, but I think you get the gist. It's is Lewis's explanation for how (at least in Narnia) those who don't know Aslan by name can still be saved. But what I'm curious about and looking for are biblical passages that either back this up or disprove it, or are related to the subject at all. Any help would be very much appreciated.

"And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all thier adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last the were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, whcih no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."

The Magician's Nephew

The Magician's Nephew has some spectacular images in it. What could be more thrilling than watching Aslan sing Narnia into existence? And the image of the apple tree Digory planted in England quivering whenever it's counterpart in Narnia was in a strong wind? And the little guinea pig munching contentedly on the grass in the wood between the worlds? I love it all. What always amazes me though is how very quickly we come to the middle of the book. Digory and Polly go to another world, wake the (someday White) Witch Jadis, bring her to England, and then take her and Uncle Andrew and the cabby and the cabhorse to Narnia, and the story is already half over. I suppose that's an example of how well-placed details flesh out a story. So, some quotes:

Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.

"Gosh!" whispered Digory. "Uncle Andrew!"
To explain all this we must go back a bit. The Beasts, you remember, had tried planting and watering him. When the watering brought him to his senses, he found himself soaking wet, buried up to his thighs in earth (which was quickly turning into mud) and surrounded by more wild animals than he had ever dreamed of in his life before. It is perhaps not surprising that he began to scream and howl. This was in a way a good thing, for it at last persuaded everyone (even the Warthog) that he was alive. So they dug him up again (his trousers were in a really shocking state by now). As soon as his legs were free he tried to bolt, but one swift curl of the Elephant's trunk round his waist soon put an end to that. Everyone now thought he must be safely kept somewhere till Aslan had time to come and see him and say what should be done about him. So they made a sort of cage or coop all round him. They then offered him everything they could think of to eat.
The Donkey collected great piles of thistles and threw them in, but Uncle Andrew didn't seem to care about them. The Squirrels bombarded him with volleys of nuts be he only covered his head with his hands and tried to keep out of the way. Several birds flew to and fro diligently dropping worms on him. The Bear was especially kind. During the afternoon he found a wild bees' nest and instead of eating it himself (which he would very much like to have done) this worthy creature brought it back to Uncle Andrew. But this was in fact the worst failure of all. The Bear lobbed the whole sticky mass over the top of the enclosure and unfortunately it hit Uncle Andrew slap in the face (not all the bees were dead). The Bear, who would not at all have minded being hit in the face by a honeycomb himself, could not understand why Uncle Andrew staggered back, slipped, and sat down. And it was sheer bad luck that he sat down on the piles of thistles. "And anyway," as the Warthog said, "quite a lot of honey has got into the creature's mouth and that's bound to have done it some good." They were really getting quite fond of their strange pet and hoped that Aslan would allow them to keep it. The cleverer ones were quite sure by now that at least some of the noises which came out of his mouth had a meaning. They christened him Brandy because he made that noise so often.

"Things always work according to their nature. She has won her heart's desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it."

"But please, please - won't you - can't you give me something that will cure Mother?" Up till then he had been looking at the Lion's great front feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion's eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory's own that for a moment he flet as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.
"My son, my son," said Aslan. "I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another."