Collected Miscellany

What seems like an eternity ago – newborn children will do that to your sense of time – I read the first two books in the Looking Glass Wars series by Frank Beddor. The idea was to have a contest, book reviews, maybe even an interview with the author. I even contemplated re-reading the Alice in Wonderland series to compare and contrast. I had high hopes of an interesting and entertaining coordinated roll out of content. Well, as you are all aware – or maybe you aren’t – life intervened and none of this happened. OK, we had the contest and a winner, but nothing else. I have, however, regrouped somewhat and will now offer my review of the books. Better late than never, right?

The first book in the series is The Looking Glass Wars.  As is my habit, I am going to be lazy and use the School Library Journal summary:

When her parents, the king and queen of Wonderland, are killed by her Aunt Redd, Alyss Heart escapes by jumping into the Pool of Tears. Her jump takes her to Victorian Oxford, where she emerges from a puddle, lives as a street urchin, and is eventually adopted by Reverend and Mrs. Liddell. Unable to make anyone believe her fantastic story, she finally confides in Charles Dodgson, who says he will write a book about her. When she discovers that Alice’s Adventures Underground is full of make-believe, and not her story or her real name, she sadly resigns herself to life as a Victorian girl of privilege. Meanwhile, back in Wonderland, the Alyssians form a resistance movement and attempt to overthrow the despotic Redd. For years, Hatter Madigan searches the world for Alyss so she can return to Wonderland as Queen. In the end, the Alyssians prevail, but only after much graphic bloodshed and many brutal battles involving card soldiers who transform into warriors, chessmen, blades that whirl and slash, vicious Jabberwocks, and even carnivorous roses.

The tale is clever and flows like an animated film where action is more important than character development. However, it bears little resemblance to Lewis Carroll’s original story. Beddor has usurped the characters and setting and changed them for his own purposes, keeping only the story’s frame and not much of that. Still, the fantasy will appeal to those readers who like battles and weapons and good vs. evil on and on and on.

For my take on the book read below . . .

Continue reading →

I guess Michiko Kakutani didn’t care for Susan Faludi’s recently released THE TERROR DREAM Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America. Here is the first sentence of her New York Times review:

This, sadly, is the sort of tendentious, self-important, sloppily reasoned book that gives feminism a bad name.

She continues later:

These efforts on Ms. Faludi’s part to use the terrorist attacks of 9/11 as an occasion to recycle arguments similar to those she made a decade and a half ago in her best-selling book “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women” (1991) feel forced, unpersuasive and often utterly baffling.

She finally concludes:

Such errors of logic are typical of this ill-conceived and poorly executed book — a book that stands as one of the more nonsensical volumes yet published about the aftermath of 9/11.

So you didn’t like it?

*Reference in case you didn’t catch it

In a late, but worthy, response to my Comic book contest.  I asked for a comment or post on “why you think comics are an important art form.” And Ethan offered the following:

I certainly consider comics an important artform. In fact, I find it rather difficult to explain exactly why, because they do not strike me as particularly in need of justification. The illustrations are some of the most vibrant yet accessable visual art being produces nowadays, which shouldn’t be too surprising given that the comic industry is driven by commercial popularity rather than the ideological obsessions of academic art. I think the fact that the visual element in comics is further constrained by a narrative structure also contributes to the vibrancy of the comic art medium.

As to the narrative artistry of comics, it’s nice to see a medium unafraid to draw inspiration from genre literature and other marginalized sources. Of course, this can sometimes have the effect of limiting the narrative possibilities of the medium, but many comic writers avoid this pitfall by also drawing from classic “high” literature. I’m less impressed by the “pulpification” of classical myth in something like Frank Miller’s 300 than I am with the serious Shakespearean thematic elements of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman,, but works of both types inject a much-needed sense of historical tradition into the comic medium. They also valuably remind us that old stories aren’t great because of their inaccessibility but rather because they continue to speak across different times and cultures.

I’m encouraged by the maturation that I think is occurring in the field of comics, including everything from the formal complexity of Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, to the critical analysis of Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, to the incredible proliferation of amateur and professional work on the internet. I’m waiting expectantly for a great work of comic art to break out of the confines of the dedicated fans of the media and achieve wider popularity, but if the ranks of comic fans continue to swell as “geek” culture gains prominence in American culture, that may not even prove necessary.

 

Thanks, Ethan, for your comments and your kind words about this blog.  The comics are on there way to you as we speak.

I didn’t intend to take the week off, it just kind of happened.  I seem to have underestimated the time and focus changes in my off-line life would eat up or over-estimated my ability to focus on writing.  It seems that a new job and a new child tends to eat up a lot of your time.  One way or the other the week got away from me.

However, hope springs eternal as they say and I have plenty of books to review and discuss.  So I will redouble my efforts to get in the habit of posting.  Here is a taste of the books I am planning on reviewing in the coming days:

As a student, and former teacher, of history I am always interested to see how authors and publishers attempt to present the grand sweep of history.  So when DK Publishing sent me information about History: An Illustrated Guide to the Ideas, Events and People that Shaped the Human Story I was intrigued. Here is the description from the flap jacket:

Homo sapiens have remained the same species, largely unchanged in genetic makeup and anatomy since the Cro-Magnon era. By contrast, the cultural, social, and technological changes since then have been nothing less than extraordinary. At the core of this development is the ability of humans to store and transmit knowledge, so that each new generation stands upon the shoulders of its predecessors. This ability to use what has gone before is what sets humans apart.

Telling our story, from prehistory to the present day, DK’s History is a thought-provoking journey, revealing the common threads and forces that have shaped human history. Taking a broad-themed approach, acknowledging varied factors at work, from climate, ecology, disease, and geology and their roles in the human story, this visual celebration makes history accessible and relevant, putting events in their wider context and showing how they have shaped the world we live in.

Having spent some time with it I have to say it is a remarkable work. Like the recently reviewed China: People Place Culture History, also from DK, the photographs, illustrations and graphics are remarkable. Just flipping through it and looking at the pictures and illustrations is fascinating. But it is more than just a coffee table type book. It is a useful educational tool. It has all the building blocks for a broad based knowledge of history: time-lines; large cultural, social, and political themes; key individuals and events; as well as important issues like climate, geology, and scientific innovation, etc.

It is organized by time periods connected to larger themes. So if you simply want to check out a time-line for a specific period you can look at an illustrated time-line of major events and historical figures. If you want to learn more about that time period you can dig deeper in the chapter. If you want to get a sense of the scope and periodization of the past you can simply flip through the pages like I did this past weekend.

It is big enough to involve a great deal of detail yet as an illustrated guide it is not as intimidating as a text book or encyclopedia. This would be a great resource for school age children or for an adult who wants a better grasp of world history. Heck, I have a graduate degree in history, and taught Western Civilization, and I have really enjoyed dipping into the sections dealing with time periods and areas outside my knowledge.

From what I could tell by reading sections and subject matter I knew best, the content seems based on consensus academic history; almost goes out of its way to present a balanced picture without becoming politically correct. As I said, a great basic overview of the scope of world history.

With so much information online these days, I am not sure how many people would look to have a book like this at home. But I found it to be a fascinating and valuable resource. It is a pleasure to look at and contains a staggering amount of information. I know educational entertainment can be a misnomer and often fails to live up to the education aspect, but to me – an admitted history buff – this is educational entertainment.

As I noted above, if you love history or have students in the house this would be a great addition to the library.