Though I've made this statement before and not followed through, I think today's post is going to be short. This is partly because I have to finish reading (and start formulating discussion questions for) a bookclub book. And this bookclub is this coming Wednesday (i.e., in three days). And I haven't finished the book yet.
Now, you may be thinking You have time, though or Three days, with one being a holiday? You can do that or Dang girl, why did you procrastinate? I don't know why I wrote "Dang girl." My only excuse is I've been re-watching some episodes of Parks and Recreation and Donna's voice was in my head as I wrote it out. Anyway. My response to all of the above statements/questions is this: I started reading this book two weeks ago, it is 538 pages long, and I'm only on page 356. Now, I've also been reading other books during this time. So there's been some procrastination going on. But this is also a super dense book that isn't reading easily for me, which brings us back to the title of this post. I like book clubs because they help get me out of my comfort zone when it comes to reading. I get to read new genres, authors, and styles, which is really awesome since my personality is very much "If it ain't broke don't fix it" when it comes to branching out of activities. Sometimes. Sometimes I'm adventurous. But usually I stick to what I know I like. So book clubs help me experience new things that I might come to enjoy I just didn't know it before. They also keep me reading even when it's a book I'd otherwise put down. Most of the time I finish books I otherwise wouldn't. Sometimes even the "deadline" and pressure of a book club can't get me through a book. Which brings me to this book. I'm less than 200 pages from the end and I have three days left. Thankfully, one is a holiday. Unfortunately, I also have afternoon/evening plans on said holiday, so it may not be as productive in terms of this book as I want it to be. On the bright side, an organization already created discussion questions for this book, which means I don't necessarily need to write my own. However, the book club itself is somewhat temporary and the reason it started was quite specific, which means I'll need to create at least some questions regarding that topic. All of which means I'll be using this evening and as much time as I can spare tomorrow reading, hopefully finishing, and then creating questions for Amos Oz's A Tale of Love and Darkness. And this finally brings me back to the title of this blog post. In some cases, this particular book might be a good book club book. But not for me. This particular book is incredibly dense and is not easy to read. Since I've got a pretty hefty amount of stress in my life at the moment already, this does not make for a good book club book. At least not a monthly book club. But hey, at least we're all reading it and can discuss something over snacks when we get together. Even if it's less about content and more about other things. Do you have books you wish you'd read in a book club because it would have forced you to finish? What about books you wish you'd never chosen for a book club (if you've ever been part of one)? Do you think your answers would change based on life events? Let me know in the comments. Happy Reading!
0 Comments
I love Young Adult novels. Not all of them are good, but that can be said for any novel at any age level. What I like about YA novels though, is that the good ones often present a view of the universe that is very nuanced and help expose young adults (and all other readers) to ideas about what is, what should be, economic systems, social issues, etc., within a safe world. Readers are free to explore these topics without having to "worry" about whether the vast majority of their friends will agree with whatever political view the book takes, because it's just a book. I'm not saying this doesn't happen for adult books, but oftentimes adults take adult books too seriously and can get offended if they see someone reading a book they think contains ideas that are "wrong." Young Adult books don't necessarily carry this stigma (though you always have to be careful for those people worried about whether it is "appropriate" based on cursing, sexual activities, etc.). The point is! Young Adult novels are a great way for people to gain basic understanding of complex ideas without worrying that someone is going to slap a book out of their hands or dismiss its ideas because it's written by a "radical."
The Red Rising trilogy (which is the opening salvo of a larger series) is an example of a YA series where there's a lot that can be unpacked if you want. Or there's the option of just enjoying the story. Overall it help tells a message about the dangers of white-supremacy (or any sort of supremacy but in our current world it's white-supremacy), capitalism, technology, and societal norms. It does not go the way of Dune and the Butlerian Jihad (i.e., robots/AI taking control of everything and humans fighting back), but in some ways is much more insidious. It's biological science technology involving genetics, the reproductive system, and micro-chipping. Things that seem hugely science fiction right now, but which aren't actually that far away. The basic premise of of the series is that humanity has been separated into different colors, each color holding a place in the hierarchy of society. Reds at the bottom, Golds at the top. Through genetic engineering Golds are superior in size, strength, and supposedly everything else. Reds and other colors (Grays, Obsidians, Pinks, Violets, Blues, Oranges, etc.) are useful but inferior. Society has rules, Golds enforce those rules, and everyone is happy. Except, obviously to the reader, they aren't. Darrow, a Red hell-diver, is called upon by the Sons of Ares to infiltrate the Golds and help bring about the revolution. He is remade as a Gold and pushed into what amounts to a military academy. And let me tell you, it's way worse than the Hunger Games. The series is violent, disturbing, and heart-rending. I've cried and yelled and almost thrown the book (yes, I stopped myself in time but did end up slamming it against my table). It is not a story that has a happy ending, though I suppose Pierce Brown may pull something out of his hat in this last book, but it is a very important story to read. Even if you don't read it as a commentary on capitalism, white-supremacy, social norms, technology, and/or the human condition it is a series worth reading. Because as much as I love happy endings, it's important to be reminded that sometimes things don't turn out well. There are wars, traumas, and horrors in our world, but that doesn't mean we give up. That is, in my opinion, the most important message of this series (though there are a whole lot more if you read deeply). So read those happy books like I do, but maybe pick these up too. Because it never hurts to be reminded that we can always get back up again and there is always something worth rising for. Happy Reading! Today's post should be a short one (though I've said that before and that doesn't happen, so who knows). This post will, however, be dedicated to one of my creative outlets: drawing. I'm not an amazing artist when it comes to drawing. I can make something that looks good, but I never took the time to study and make myself great. It takes a lot of time, lots of erasing, and often does not match what I wanted it to look like in my head. This does not mean it looks bad, but there are things I notice like shading, or how the body is posed, or the hands/feet of a person, that just look off. That being said, when I draw something it doesn't look horrible, and I realize this. But I've seen other people draw much better pictures than me, so when I say I'm not a "good" artist, it's because I don't think I could make a living off of my art as it stands right now. With that explanation out of the way...One of the authors I follow on Facebook (shout-out to Aidy Award and all her lovely romance novels!!! If you like romance, try her books, they're awesome), posted something that I found really awesome. Apparently, May is the month a portion of the internet dedicates to drawing mermaids. It is termed #MerMay, and it is amazing!!! Follow that hashtag (or the more specific #MerMay2019) on Twitter or Instagram if you love mermaids (which I do) because there is some lovely art out there! And what's even better is the diversity you see in the art. These aren't all Disney mermaids that are super thin with heteronormative relationships and are not all that dangerous to humans. You get some of those. There's a really cute piece of art that has Pudge from Lilo and Stitch as a mermaid hanging out with Lilo and Stitch. There are mermen, mermaids of pretty much every type of aquatic creature, every type of skin color, and every weight. I got so inspired that I decided to draw my own mermaid for #MerMay, so I thought I'd share my picture and the process it took to get me to the final product. So first steps, sketch things out. Below you can see my first "this is essentially what I want it to look like" sketch. This is after multiple erasures and dangits. I say sketch, but I don't actually know how, so I just draw lightly until I get an approximation of what I want, which is when I start drawing darker. As you can see, I don't have the face mapped out, and most of the lines are light enough that I could easily erase them without leaving too many marks on the paper. Step 2, once I'm satisfied with my sketches, is inking it out. If I'm scanning my drawings or taking a picture, sometimes pencil doesn't show up dark enough, so I tend to ink in the outlines of things. This also means that if I want to go back and make a line cleaner I can do so without worrying about erasing everything around that line too. I only ink after I'm sure of what details I want included. It's a prelude to the last step. The picture above isn't just the ink, I'd already started to color some of it in when I took the picture. At some point in my life I want to learn the art of ink drawing, but I'm not confident enough in my skills to create an entire piece of art with only pens. I like to be able to erase, or at least just make the whole thing a darker shade if I mess something up. Step 3 is coloring. As you see in the above picture, I already started. I use colored pencils mostly because if you start light enough it's relatively easy to hide any mistakes. But they're also pretty cheap and easy to find. I don't need to go to a craft store to get good ones. Below is my finished product. I've been thinking about lionfish mermaids for quite a few years, and so that's what I decided to draw. I chose brown colors because I wanted it to be somewhat realistic. I had a hard time with the hair (I was running out of browns but I also wanted everything but the dark brown streaks to be a noticeable different color) and the eyes. I had the 24-pack of Crayola colored pencils, so in some ways my color choices were limited by that. Overall, it would have been nice to have the hair and eyes blend in a bit more with the rest of the look but I'm very happy with how it turned out.
What creative pursuits do you explore sometimes? Do you have a dedicated activity? Or is it more of a "when I get the urge I do this..." type of thing for you? Let me know in the comments. Happy Reading! It doesn't always happen but sometimes when I review a book on Goodreads.com I give it less than three stars. I don't like to do this. I know how much work goes into writing/publishing/marketing/selling a book, and I'm still on the writing portion of mine. But sometimes I need to rate a book just "ok", which is a two-star rating on Goodreads. And the thing is, this book, and others in the series, have storylines which are worth a three-star rating at least. I'm on the third book in the Parasol Protectorate series now. I started reading the series last week. Obviously I like these books right? And I do. I just do not like the writing style.
The story itself takes place in a steampunk rendition of Victorian England. The aether (a common entity in steampunk literature) sort of takes the place of electric and magnetic advances. In addition to this classical steampunk trope, supernatural creatures, vampires and werewolves, join the cast, and the main character herself, a Miss Alexia Tarabotti, is a preternatural. Preturnaturals aren't a common paranormal creature. In this world, vampires and werewolves are created out of mortals that had extra "soul." Similar to scientific understanding in our current world, the book's world doesn't really have a good explanation of what the "soul" is. But they know that mortals who have an excess survive the change to vampires or werewolves. In contrast, a preternatural has no "soul." They live, they have consciences, they reproduce exactly the same as humans would. But they have no souls, and their touch renders supernatural creatures mortal again. So, in essence, they're the opposite of a supernatural. Hence the term preternatural. I won't get into the actual plot of the book, but just reading that short description of the type of world the book contains is amazing. It's exactly my type of book. But the characters, who I mostly like, and the intricacies of the world itself weren't able to make up for the writing style. It was written in third person, which as an author I like because it gives me some freedom to switch perspectives without having to indicate in a chapter or section heading which characters is speaking. It can, however, be difficult for a reader if viewpoint changes too often without an indication or pattern (as often happens in the Parasol Protectorate series). In this series' case, I think the possible issues with third-person are compounded because the author doesn't always refer to the same characters in the same way. For example, sometimes she'll call the protagonist Alexia but other times she'll call the protagonist Miss Tarabotti. And there isn't a pattern I've been able to detect that indicates why she's using a different moniker. This was jarring for me in the first book, and has been in the second book as well. I'm not far enough into the third book to make a judgement on that yet. Long story short (though it isn't if you consider the length of this post), I've given the first two books of the Parasol Protectorate series two-star ratings because the writing style is so jarring, but they are at least three-star worthy in terms of characters and storyline keeping me interested. If you like steampunk and paranormal reads (yes there is romance thrown in too) feel free to read the book(s) and give me your opinion on them. Maybe you'll catch a pattern I missed and I can go back and up my rating. Or we can just gab about the book itself. Happy Reading! Today, May 2, 2019, is Yom HaShoah. In English, that's Holocaust Memorial Day. For Jews such as myself, it is an important day because millions of Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and people with disabilities were systematically destroyed by Nazis. Jews were not the only group that were targeted by the Nazis, but as a people we make sure to remember the Holocaust and all the lives lost to hatred, xenophobia, and white supremacy. I am writing this blog post in part because even as we remember the lives lost in the Holocaust today, we also are dealing with rising levels of antisemitism, racism, and xenophobia throughout the world. A piece of evidence supporting this is the shooting at the Poway Chabad in California on Saturday, April 27. While this shooting did not result in as many fatalities as another recent synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, life was still lost. One of the underlying reasons for the shooting was antisemitism. Another was white-supremacy. These were also two reasons the Jews were targeted during the Holocaust.
On Monday I was having a conversation with a few other young Jews in my community about how this shooting and antisemitism affected us. One of the topics revolved around how we as Jews can communicate to our friends how an event like Poway affects us even when it's "small." After all, "only" one person died and a few others were injured. It wasn't like Pittsburgh when 11 people died, or the shooting at the Mosque in Christchurch New Zealand when 51 people died, or the bombs at Catholic churches in Sri Lanka where hundreds died. So Poway, in some ways, is not as big a tragedy and does not get as much media coverage and so people who are not in a Jewish community may not be speaking of it. But it is still very important to our lives. Every shooting or violent act against us is. So how can we communicate this to others without seeming whiny. Because it may not be a big deal to them, but it is very important to us. I suggested writing a blog where you don't just post about tragedies but use the blog to share your truth. Which is what I am trying to do with this blog. I am trying to share my truth through the books I read, the days I live, and the research/writing that I do. And since I gave such a lovely suggestion to a friend, I decided to take my own advice and write a blog. Especially since what happened at Poway is actually relevant to Yom HaShoah. The second topic that stuck with me from my conversation with other young Jews about Poway is the following question: do you feel safe or scared? And my answer for this question was, do I ever feel safe? I didn't go through the Holocaust. None of my immediate family did. All my grandparents, and even great grandparents were safely in the U.S. when the Holocaust happened. I have no personal stories (removed by a few generations) about the antisemitism, the ghettos, the concentration camps, the underground, the death. But I've read books, I've attended classes, I've met others whose grandparents lived through the Holocaust, or maybe didn't. And I grew up in a place where there were very few Jews in a town that was not necessarily Jew friendly. A few of the other people I was speaking with on Friday mentioned that they don't necessarily feel unsafe except when they go to synagogue and see the armed guards there. That's when they're reminded of the shootings. Or sometimes there's a phrase people say that's antisemitic and they're triggered. They don't really notice feeling unsafe. When I grew up, every high holiday there was a cop car at our synagogue. My parents taught me that I don't mention my Judaism unless its with friends. Friends who are established. As I grew older, this changed somewhat. But I almost always laughed off the antisemitic comments people made. It's safer that way. And when people start throwing up "Heil Hitlers" you just keep walking. I don't want you to think it was dangerous back then. It really wasn't. Incidents were very few and very far between. But while sometimes a small thing will trigger me now (it may not have meant anything, but if I see a shirt with a stormtrooper helmet on it saying "Support Our Troops" I'm going to walk in the other direction, maybe jog if it won't be conspicuous), I don't feel any more unsafe being a Jew, and happy to be a Jew, than I ever did. And after thinking about it, it is partly because I have always been afraid. Jews are white, and therefore don't have it as badly as other minorities in the U.S. We are still a minority and still victims of white-supremacy, but because many of us also have white skin (no, not all of us, and internal prejudice is still a major problem unfortunately) many of us also don't worry as much about being shot by the police. Right now. We don't necessarily fear that gentrification will push us out of our homes. We don't usually fear that someone will call the cops on us only because of the color of our skin. We still fear that someone is going to get it into their head that Jews have too much money. That Jews run the state through a grand conspiracy. That "if only the Jews were gone things would be better for us." Antisemitism is an interesting form of prejudice because it relies on the victims not looking like victims. If the Jews look like scapegoats, a people who are privileged but not quite privileged enough, then we can take the blame of everyone's problems. It has been like this since medieval times. It was key to the Pittsburgh shooting. And so we are still afraid. Balanced between privilege and prejudice we never know when the scales will tip. And so we are always afraid. Violence is on the rise. Terrorism based on white supremacy is becoming more blatant (it's always been high, we just didn't want to recognize it). And the overt trends in the U.S. are looking more and more like Nazi Germany. The U.S. has always had issues. The country was built on the attempted genocide of indigenous peoples and the slavery of African nations. It has benefited from the exploitation of non-whites at every point in its history and we sweep that fact under the rug. But now the U.S. is letting those actions become acceptable, even celebrated, with no attempt to cushion the blows. Now, the U.S. is scapegoating immigrants and asylum seekers. The Latinx communities are bearing the brunt of this now. Soon it may change. Scapegoats might once again be Jews. Or Muslims. Or Blacks. Or Indigenous Nations. Or Asians. Or Pacific Islanders. Or homosexuals. Anyone that doesn't fit with white-supremacy. It happened before. It seems to be happening again. And so we are always afraid. These have been my thoughts this week. And I hope that my truth has made you uncomfortable. Because discomfort inspires action. Think about what you see and hear around you. Be kind. Stand up to authority to take care of your neighbors. Do not be complacent. And maybe we will be able to be less afraid. Last year and this year I've been trying to increase my non-fiction reading repertoire (though I cheat a little bit and count memoirs as non-fiction, which is a debatable classification that I take full advantage of) because I prefer fiction to non-fiction. Part of this is because reading is at least a partial escape for me, and I don't really want to read about the real horrible things happening in the world. This is also why I prefer romances and fantasy with at least a mostly happy ending. Part of it is that non-fiction reads differently than fiction, and often the writing style in non-fiction books is one that often leaves me with glazed over eyes even when the topic is interesting. However, I do want to be well-informed and I don't want to push myself into a corner with my reading, so in 2018 and 2019 I've given myself the goal of reading at least one non-fiction (memoirs included) book per month. And for April 2019 I read The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game. Somewhat surprisingly (though I don't know why it would be a surprise as I like board games) the history of Monopoly is fascinating.
You see, the game itself was originally an argument against monopolies and, to some extent, capitalism. I won't go into the whole history but the game of origin was called The Landlord's Game and was invented by Lizzie Magie in 1904. It had two ways to play, monopoly style and non-monopoly style. As the game spread and people put their own spin on the game, including making homemade boards, it became known as the monopoly game, as the monopoly style was the one most used. But I'll let you read the book to get the whole story. ;) While it wasn't my favorite book ever to read, at this point I'm unsure whether a non-fiction book will ever receive that distinction for me, it was very interesting because it went about telling the history of Monopoly through the lens of a game developed in the 1970s (I believe the official date is 1977), Anti-Monopoly. The cool thing is, while I hadn't really noticed such a game before, I actually saw one today at the Labyrinth board game store in Washington D.C. I don't know if it's just because I read this book and so I noticed the game for the first time, or if the game had just never been sold in any of the stores I've purchased games from before, but it was really cool to see the Anti-Monopoly game, especially because this book made the topic so interesting. The Monopolists is written by a journalist, and therefore has a journalistic tone. That is, it tries very hard to be objective even though no human being can be completely objective. That being said, overall I think the book did a fairly good job of not overtly telling us that big corporations are jerks and shouldn't be trusted. It was surely implied, at least it was in my mind, but it wasn't an in-your-face statement. The book also increased my interest in trademark/copyright law (which is something I'll need to deal with at some point as an aspiring author anyway) and how since cases like the Anti-Monopoly case went through laws have changed to better protect the big corporations from their iconic products entering into the public domain. Mickey Mouse anyone? Overall, I enjoyed The Monopolists. I think it was well written, well researched, and the topic was quite interesting. I suggest it for anyone who is interested in the history of games, underdogs winning court cases, commentaries on current economic systems, and enthusiasts of the Monopoly game itself. If you end up reading it, or have a non-fiction book suggestion for me, let me know in the comments! Happy reading! And because I like big books, when they all come in for me at once at the library it means I don't always finish them before they have to go back...Since I don't like to pay fines for overdue items, I bring them back and then have to put them on hold again. This has been my life the past few weeks. A lot of books that I really want to read have come in for me at the library, but I've also been pretty busy with work, applying for scholarships for an international PhD, and trying to finish the first draft of last year's NaNoWriMo novel. All this means, not as much time for reading, and therefore I've had to return books before I've finished them. :(
That being said, I am reading a book right now that I've had on hold for a while and I'm not going to let it go back to the library without finishing it because I've been waiting for it to be published for over a year! It isn't that big, actually, only 354 pages, and it is quite entertaining. What is the book you ask? The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden. It is the final book in a trilogy that are based on Russian folk-tales. One reason I love it so much is that here in the U.S., we don't always get to experience the mythologies of other cultures. Vikings and Greeks and Romans, yeah, we've pretty much all heard some form of those. And the Fae of Great Britain are pretty popular too. But outside of those "big" mythologies, we don't get much exposure to the mythologies of other cultures here in the U.S. The trilogy starts with The Bear and the Nightingale, which I say anyone who likes folk/fairy-tales should read. The series concludes with the book I'm currently reading, and while I'm only 60-something pages in, I definitely know it's going to be a good book. It's already been a wild ride and I'm really looking forward to what happens next! That's why today's post is going to be so short, because I really want to get back to reading while I have time today (I still need to spend some time on my novel and finish making lunches for the week). If you want, let me know what you're reading and what your favorite mythology/folk/fairy-tale stories are in the comments. I'm always up for discussing them and finding new stories to love! Happy Reading! So in case you didn't notice, I missed two weeks of posting, sorry about that. I believe I had a reasonable excuse for the first week though, because I totally felt like death. Whatever cold/flu whatever that was hitting the East coast of the USA (and might still be here) took me down hard. And it took all but one of my co-workers down at the same time. It was an interesting week at work, what with the chorus of hacks and nose blowing. Last week I was on the tail end of it all and probably should have posted but I lost track of time during the day and it just didn't happen. And that type of thing just kept happening throughout the whole week, so here we are.
I don't really have anything specific I want to write today. Not that I haven't been reading a lot and gathering up a lot of fodder for social commentary, but if I'm not in the right mood trying to discuss either of those is exhausting and I don't do it well. Case in point, someone asking about universal income at a dinner I was at, me saying we should abolish capitalism, and the conversation going nowhere because it was difficult for me to fully articulate why I think that. Keep in mind, I'm a budding leftist. I haven't read much of the material needed to bring up hard facts/figures off the top of my head, and most of my knowledge right now revolve around small facts that I learn and my feeling that the current system never really worked because if it had then why haven't we fixed the problems of poverty, starvation, and climate change yet? Look at the technology we have. Look at the number of videos on the internet about "this plate is fully compostable" or "this robot cleans the oceans" or "this shampoo has no plastic bottle." Yet, none of those initiatives seem to really get off the ground. Not to mention, individual pollution is minuscule compared to that of factories. Yet even though climate scientists have essentially said we're screwed if we don't fix this by 2050, I don't see a whole lot being done by companies to fix it. All of this combined with the fact that some studies show there are about five times as many empty domiciles for rent as there are homeless people in the US (Truthdig 2012), and that there are people in the US who are homeless but still work 40 hours a week(McCoy, 2019)...Well, that doesn't give me warm and happy feelings about capitalism. So even though I said I wasn't going to talk about it, I did. Go figure. The story told by McCoy? It was right across from my work building. I walk that stretch of road every day and see people in tents or huddled under blankets. I'm pretty sure I saw the altercation mentioned, when Monica was yelling at the clean-up crews. It was a few minutes before a conference call, I was dialing the number, and I looked out the window and saw a woman yelling at the people dragging her belongings away. It might not have been the woman referenced in the story; it might have been another person saying the same things. Another person who is trying so hard to keep on his/her/their feet but failing because the system we're in works against them. Some people may say that this system we're in is a bastardization of capitalism, and pure capitalism isn't like this. Pure capitalism will actually work. But I don't think that's true. And maybe it's partially because I haven't actually read Ayn Rand and just can't picture it. Maybe human beings are "just greedy" and the system isn't at fault. But what if it isn't that humans are "just greedy?" What if a system like capitalism, or at least the version we currently have, is the reason humans are "just greedy?" I see a system around us that rewards being greedy. It rewards looking out only for yourself. It rewards the hoarding of money (which by they way, is totally made up and doesn't actually mean anything unless you're in a system that forces it to mean something). And when you are rewarded for being greedy? Then that is what you become. And evolutionarily, those people who are "best" at being greedy and ignoring others? Well they're in prime position to reproduce. There's a reason the highest ratios of psychopathic traits are in CEOs. This turned into a very deep and dark post, and I apologize. But sometimes when I'm writing and can actually search for my references/facts I make better arguments. I do not want this to turn into an online argument. I just needed to express some of the inner worries and stresses of my life. Feel free to give your own opinions or point me towards other articles that support or don't support my views. Just don't turn it into an argument. Next week I'll have a happier topic. Maybe a book or movie review... Happy Reading! References: McCoy, T. (2019, March 22). Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness in the U.S. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com Truthdig. (2012) Vacant houses outnumber homeless people in the U.S. Retrieved from https://www.truthdig.com/articles/vacant-houses-outnumber-homeless-people-in-u-s/ We're taking a break from book-themed posts this week, because I have very little energy and my brain does not feel capable of making logical commentary on the books I've read this week. Consequently, today's post is also likely to be quite short.
Exhaustion is a funny thing, because there are some days when you should be exhausted and you are, some days you should be exhausted and you aren't, and some days when you shouldn't be exhausted but you are anyway. Today is one of the latter for me. I think part of it may be because I'm crashing after about a month of high stress all the time. With grad school application issues (thankfully they've all been resolved), a last minute conference, preparing for Purim at work, preparing for and hosting a Purim Extravaganza Shabbat, and calling in to my Colorado book club, it's been a long stretch of late (for me) nights and high adrenaline levels. Of course, what this means for me is that when all those tasks are complete, my adrenaline crashes and I'm actually aware of how tired I am. So really, today I just want to take a nap. That being said, I can't take a nap because that messes with my sleep cycle and just makes the exhaustion of tomorrow worse...And with another conference coming up this week I'm not willing to risk that. It does, however, remind me of a book I read on the recommendation of a co-worker, "The Age of Miracles" by Karen Thompson Walker. While it was not one of my favorite reads last year, it did have some beautiful language and does comment on the importance of the circadian rhythm (though that is most definitely not the main point of the story). The book is about something going wrong with the rotation of the Earth which results in days getting longer. While I forget what number of hours the days eventually stopped at, it was enough that the normal circadian rhythms of organisms all over the planet were getting screwed up. While the book is primarily a coming of age story framed around this disaster, it mentions two factions: those who simply get black-out blinds and continue to work with a 24-hour day schedule regardless of whether there is sunlight outside or not, and those who attempt to reset their sleeping rhythms by staying awake when it is light and going to sleep when it is dark. There's no real resolution between these two factions in the book (again, that wasn't the point of the story), but neither one really worked that well. And while I don't know whether one or the other would actually be better for human beings should such a strange thing happen, I do know that maintaining sleep rhythms in everyday life is pretty important. It's why I've read multiple blog articles in the past about how you shouldn't change your sleep/wake cycle on the weekends. It's also why people invest in products that help them sleep when they need to (e.g., sleep-masks, ear-plugs, blackout blinds, etc.) even if nature isn't cooperating. It's also why Daylight Savings tends to make everyone grumpy at some point. And because I believe in the importance of sleep, it means that as much as I want to nap today I'm going to keep pushing through the day so that I can sleep tonight without worrying about tossing and turning until midnight. Thankfully, reading isn't too strenuous and I have leftover food from my Shabbat dinner for lunches this week. ;) Happy Reading! Spoiler Warning: For those of you haven't watched the movie or read the book but want to do so, please be aware that there are spoilers in this blog post. Do not read if you do not want spoilers. Thank you.And with that lovely comparison picture I'm just going to jump right into the first, but hopefully not last, post of the category "Book Vs. Movie!" When you read that, you should hear a deep announcer voice in your head that then echoes off into the distance after the last syllable. Please tell me I'm not the only one who hears that every time I type out "Book Vs. Movie!"
Internal experiences of my psyche aside, I tend to have a love-hate relationship with books that are turned into movies or TV shows, mainly because I'm also a fandom girl, which means that I tend to get bogged down by the little details that "just aren't right" in the movie and angry at the gigantic changes that often happen (moral of the story, you probably don't want to ask me what I thought of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians movies). Moving on. I think that modern society, most especially in the Western capitalist world, has done a great disservice to men and women when it comes to conceptions of beauty. I'm sure you all probably have thoughts of your own on that topic, and a quick Google search will show you a plethora of other opinions too, but the point of this post isn't to debate the consequences and origins of body-shaming. Today, I'm going to be giving my take on the Young Adult novel turned Netflix film book celebrating fat-positivity and the rise of a teen beauty pageant contestant. Three Big Differences: It's been a few weeks since I read the book, and because of Netflix it is super popular right now and therefore I had to return it to the library and do not have it in front of me to remind myself of small details, so I'll just discuss three big ones. #1 Where's the love triangle? For those of you who haven't read the book, I'm sure that's a major spoiler, sorry but I did warn you at the top there would be spoilers. One of the huge differences between the book and the movie was the lack of Willowdean's love life, and El's as well to some extent. There was a definite love triangle going on, and it started during the summer when Bo and Willowdean started going out (the timeline of the movie is completely different from the book, though I give the movie some leeway because they do have to condense things a lot), then Willowdean found out Bo didn't tell her he was going to be attending her school (another huge difference that I'm giving some leeway for, see above) and they sort of broke up, and Willowdean went to the dance with a different boy from the football team who is super sweet but the spark isn't there, and she still likes Bo and Bo still likes her, and this new boy likes her too, and it's like every other teen love triangle: a mess. But this was missing from the movie. Potentially because of time constraints. Potentially because of how confusing it was. Potentially a bit of both. I'm both glad the movie didn't try to fit it all into the movie, but sad as well. Because the movie shares and overall uplifting message, but the book is able to add greater depth to what fat girls and boys go through, especially in high school. Now as for El's love life with her boyfriend, who we see at the very beginning of the movie and then hear is puking in the bathroom at the end of the movie but otherwise know nothing about, is also more detailed in the book. And it actually causes some added tension between Willowdean and El which increases the intensity of their "break" during the pageant. And that's a perfect segue into the next gigantic difference. #2 Willowdean and El break up I fully acknowledge that time cannot truly be compared in movies and books, because while both tend to skip days/weeks/months as the plot needs, books can add it tons of little details to the days whereas movies...can't. There is no way a movie is going to be able to do what a book can do because people start leaving at 2 hours. Most of the time, anyway. So I understand why the movie may have chosen to have El and Willowdean's fight work out the way it did. But in the book? El wasn't even supposed to sign up. That's when the fight started. And cracks were already showing before that when Callie (El's friend from where she worked) dropped a line to Willowdean that El might have confided more about her first time to Cali than she did to Willowdean. That, coupled with a lot of the other stuff, pushed the breaking point much earlier in the book, which means it lasted longer too. The main basis for the fight was the same, however, so I accept the slight changes the film made for time. #3 Missing characters!!!! So, there are at least two relatively main characters from the book that never made it into the movie. And unfortunately I can't remember their names (which is really bad and I'm sorry) and since they aren't in the movie, they aren't mentioned anywhere but in the book! And I don't have the book right in front of me. However, these two characters were relatively important to the plot of the novel. One, is Millie's very good friend who enters the pageant with Millie, Hannah, and Willowdean. The second, is the third leg of the love triangle mentioned above. Obviously, the movie was still able to tell the story without these characters, but it's difficult for me as a reader to fully love a film that cuts characters, even if it is for a good reason. Conclusion: Read the book. And watch the film. As far as book-to-movie films go, Dumplin' did pretty well. There were some large differences, and probably a whole lot more small ones than I caught, but the overall message was the same. Conventional forms of pretty? They should mean less than we think they do; and while it can be incredibly difficult to do so, ignore those conventions and just be yourself. Also, Dolly Parton is queen. ;) This has been another long post, so I'll leave it at that for now. Definitely reach out or leave a comment if you want more detail though. I'm always willing to talk books. Happy Reading! |
AuthorThe author is a librarian who reads "too much" (is there such a thing?) and talks just as much. As an aspiring author she gets bogged down by grammar rules when she just wants to forget them to make a sentence flow, but never seems to be able to. She appreciates thoughtful comments and constructive criticism, but internet trolls beware, she's read enough fantasy novels to know how to defeat the monsters. Archives
October 2020
Categories
All
|