Found

There is a book which my dad and I have Arguments over. (This isn't too surprising, since my dad and I have arguments over a lot of things. Arguing with each other is one of our Favourite Pastimes. This particular arument, however, is a Recurring Argument.) The Argument is entirely my fault, but don't tell my dad I said that.

Here's the thing: my dad owns a book entitled The Complete Evaporated History of the World Since the Dawn of Time. It was published in 1984, and I adore it. I use it for reference, you see, because unlike every other book of history I have ever read, I have Excellent Recall of Everything in This Book. I can quote it verbatim. It helps me keep history in order inside my head.

My dad rarely looks at said book, and so a couple of years ago the Natural Order of Things caused the book to become appropriated to my own collection. It has lived on my bookshelf ever since.

My dad doesn't like this, since the book is His and he suspects that I intend to take it with me when I move out (he's not wrong there). This is how the Arguments came about.

BUT NOW! Praise be, I have discovered the wonder of online shopping. In particular, YOU CAN BUY OUT OF PRINT BOOKS ONLINE! I've ordered myself a copy of The Book for the Princely Sum of $12. So now, all that's left is for me to share some quotes with you, my dear readers, so you too can agonise over the fact that you do not own this gem:


"We know all about the Egyptians because they wrote their history on the wall in a secret language. Unforunately, they then forgot the language, so it was all a bit of a waste."

"Julius Ceasar invented a new sort of calendar, which was exatly the same length as a year. This may not sound very clever, by there has to be a first time for everything."

"A small problem arose over a loosely-worded commandment which said THOU SHALT NOT KILL."

"The Inquisition came down heavily against materialism. ... Thus proper civilisation came to America, while crass materialism was shipped back to Spain."

"When the French heard about the American revolution, they said 'Ah-ha' in French, and decided that they would like to revolve too."



P.S. Please disregard the Inappropriate Capital Letters in this post. I'm just in That Sort of Mood.

One star reviews

I decided to try out a little experiment suggested by Jeanette Demain in this Salon article. The method: search your favourite books on Amazon, read the 'one star' reviews. See if you can't avoid coming away "profoundly disheartened and pessimistic about the continued existence of humankind."

Here's what I found:

The Princess Bride by William Goldman
"I went to amazon to find a unabriged copy of the princess bride. The copy I recieved is not unabriged. I found out that amazon dose not have aunabriged fore  sale,but if you request it it comes up that they do.So now I am stuck with a book that I do not want and still nedd the book that I do not have." [sic]
(If you haven't read The Princess Bride, it might help to understand that the book is not actually abridged. There are several authorial interruptions throughout the book, but these are part of the fiction.)

Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb (Book 1 of the Liveship Traders)
" This is 809 pages of adolescent drivel. The conflicts established provided ample opportunity for a satisfying resolution that never occurred. Far too much elaboration on the shallow reflections of flat characters. As a reader, I felt cheated."
(I want to scream: Flat? FLAT!? Hobb's characters come in so many shades of grey they put E Ink to shame. They're more complex than... than... ['What's something complex?' I ask, and my dad and brothers suggest several possibilities: integrals; rocket science; the female mind? Any of those works. Insert your own.] FLAT!!??)

Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery (Book 2 of the Emily series)
"Emily Climbs is a book for people of no imagination or life. Ittook me forever to read because of the lack of action and adventure.I don't reccomend this book to anyone with an imagination. END" [sic]

Stardust by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess
" 'Stardust' was just about the worst book i have ever read. It's extremely boring, and some parts are very inappropriate for little kids.The first chapter was pointless and too long (30-something pages) and had bits of fluff that were not important. Every chapter is 20 pages or more. I stopped reading it by chapter 4." [sic]
(Perhaps this would be a suitable criticism of a children's book, but I fail to see how it applies here.)

Literary crushes

The first crush I ever had was on a fictional character. Nuuskamuikkunen. Or, in the English translation of the Moomins, Snuffkin. The reason was simple. He was a thinker, and I liked that. I wanted to marry him. I must have been four or five years old.

Since then, I think the fictional characters I’ve ‘had a thing’ for have outnumbered the ‘real people’. I don’t think I’m alone in this, and I think the reason is simple. We get to know fictional characters, really know them, in a way we rarely know people we come across in day to day life. Isn’t that what happens when you fall in love? You get to know someone so well that their faults and their mistakes make sense to you, because you know their motivations and their history. Sometimes you know them better than they know themselves. That’s what love is. Is it any wonder that we sometimes feel a shadow of it for the characters we know intimately?

Here are a few of my literary loves:

Peter Pevensie, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
Teddy Kent, the Emily series by L. M. Montgomery
Matthew, the Obernewtyn Chronicles by Isobelle Carmody
Fitzwilliam Darcy, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Wintrow Vestrit, The Liveship Traders trilogy by Robin Hobb

I actually began typing out a brief description of each of the characters, and then realized I was saying the same things about each of them: unflinchingly loyal, considerate, immovable on matters of integrity and conscience, confident in his own judgment. (Mind you, a lot of these characters are quite different. They just happen to share all of these qualities.)

I guess the fact that Peter Pevensie makes it onto the list shows that even at age seven I knew that standing for something is hot.

Stardust: Child vs. Adult

I've just been listening to a podcast found here about Neil Gaiman's Stardust. Most of the discussion in the podcast revolves around what makes the book a 'fairytale for adults'.

Stardust, as you know, is one of my favourite books. Gaiman describes the premise of the book:

"I wanted a young man who would set out on a quest - in this case a romantic quest, for the heart of Victoria Forester, the loveliest girl in his village. The village was somewhere in England, and was called Wall, after the wall that runs beside it, a dull-looking wall in a normal-looking meadow. And on the other side of the wall was Faerie - Faerie as a place or as a quality, rather than as a posh way of spelling fairy. Our hero would promise to bring back a fallen star, one that had fallen on the far side of the wall.

"And the star, I knew, would not, when he found it, be a lump of metallic rock. It would be a young woman with a broken leg, in a poor temper, with no desire to be dragged halfway across the world and presented to anyone's girlfriend."

In the same article, Gaiman mentions that he loved The Princess Bride when he was young, and wrote Stardust with the wish of creating another story that was "unapologetically a fairytale, and just as unapologetically for adults."

Much of the podcast discussion revolves around the single sex scene and the single swear word found in Stardust. Are these what make the novel one for adults? Or are they just the elements which make adults able to claim a fairytale as their own without embarrassment?

A new favourite

I blogged about my favourite books here, but alas, the list is now out of date. I've added Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, to my list of favourite-ever books.

I wrote about Good Omens here. I really can't praise the book highly enough.

And I am rather excited to have found some wonderful fan art, here on deviantART. Do yourself a favour and check it out. It's beautiful art, and it's an excellent recommendation for the book.

View on fishpond: Good Omens

This is my favourite book in all the world

I'm currently rereading The Princess Bride, and I'd forgotten how much I loved it. Actually I'm going to spend my whole year loving it (I hope), because I get to write my Honours thesis on it. I'm a little excited about the project.

Anyway, rereading one of my favourite books made me realize that I've never shared my favourites on here. So, here they are:

The Princess Bride by William Goldman
I love this book because of its playfulness and its truth. I love so many of the characters- Inigo, the vengeful Spaniard, is my favourite. How can you not love the dialogue? (Much of which is in the film. Don't tell me you haven't seen the film. You'll break my heart.) And how can you not love Goldman for continually taking the piss out of his own work?
This book is pure satire, in all its sarcastic, entertaining glory.
First line: "This is my favourite book in all the world, though I have never read it."

The Emily series by L.M. Montgomery
I first read these when I was seven years old. If there are any books which define me, these are it. I quote these books continually, I've internalised them. They're by the author of Anne of Green Gables, but where Anne is flamboyant and loud, Emily is dreamy and intense. She lives in a world where fairies are always seconds away and words shape our existence.
Quote: "there is something BEYOND words--any words--all words--something that always escapes you when you try to grasp it--and yet leaves something in your hand which you wouldn't have had if you hadn't reached for it."

The Liveship Traders trilogy by Robin Hobb
I have never met characters who seemed more real. They step off the page. They learn, they grow, they ache. Robin Hobb allows her characters to go through things most authors would cringe at, and she allows them to be truly flawed (no 'token flaws' here).
And whaddayaknow? Their confused and flawed actions shape history in ways that you couldn't have guessed, yet seem just as real and inevitable as any human history.
Epic fantasy which is entitled to take itself seriously.

Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland
This book is a collection of short stories about a single painting. A beautiful exploration of the ways in which art touches us, changes us and commemorates our passions. Girl in Hyacinth Blue gives us the history of a painting (possibly a Vermeer) through the lives of the people who admired its beauty, from the man who destroyed it to the girl who posed for it.

Stardust by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess
Sparkling and funny. Fantastical and unsettling. Brilliant.

These are a Few of My Favourite Characters

I’m a bit baffled to see Harry Potter at the top of the list of UK children’s favourite book characters. Seriously, Harry? Hermione, sure. Ron, even. The Weasley twins, Hagrid, Luna. But not Harry. He’s such a whiney ass.

I was, however, quite pleased to see Charlie and Lola in the list.

You can see the whole list here.

Anyway, it got me thinking. Who are my favourite characters?

1. Emily Byrd Starr – the Emily series, L.M. Montgomery

2. Nuuskamuikkunen (pictured) – Moomintroll books, Tove Jansson

3. Inigo Montoya – The Princess Bride, William Goldman

4. Fitzwilliam Darcy – Pride & Prejudice, the divine Ms. Austen
5. Peregrin “Pippin” Took – The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
6. Althea Vestrit – The Liveship Traders trilogy, Robin Hobb
7. Wintrow Vestrit – The Liveship Traders trilogy, Robin Hobb
8. Professor McGonagall – The Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling
9. Mr. Bennet – Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen
10. Mr. Carpenter – the Emily series, L.M. Montgomery

I wonder if it says anything about me that only three of my ten are female? Narrowly missing the cut are Teddy Kent, also from L.M. Montgomery’s Emily series, and Maurice, the streetwise, smart-talking alley cat from Terry Pratchett’s The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents.

It's also interesting that a few of my favourite characters are from books that wouldn't even rate in my favourite books/series (e.g. Harry Potter), whilst other books which I adore (e.g. The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis) don't have any especially endearing (to me, anyway) characters.

Please leave your own lists in the comments section- I’d love to see them!

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

T. S. Eliot's ' The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' has been my favourite poem since I first read it in 2003. This image is currently on my desktop, and it reminds me every day to eat my peaches.