Reading Challenged

I challenged myself to read 50 books in 2011, but I did not meet my goal. I finished the year at 45, which isn’t bad. If one were say, shooting free throws, 45 out of 50 would be excellent (I might be closer to 45 out of 100 in that activity). I could berate myself for failing to meet an attainable goal – fifty books is slightly less than one a week – and anyone who read my blog about keeping my to-read list within certain parameters (see Sky’s the Limit) might expect some self-reproach. I could also let myself off the hook: 45 books may be down from the 52 I read in 2010, but it’s right in keeping with the 42 and 44 of the two preceding years.  I could rationalize about the degree of difficulty of the books I chose, but truthfully, many of them were middle grade or young adult. I did get bogged down between the two sheep swallowed by a boa constrictor (to borrow the author’s description) that make up Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, in addition to the cyclical internal structure of Catch-22, so I could seize upon those as symbols of my shortcomings. Ultimately though, I’ve decided to neither deride nor defend my annual yield. I won’t get a gold star on my goodreads page, but so be it.

For 2012 I have set my goal at 36. At first consideration that hardly seems a challenge, given that my lowest total of the past four years was 42. Way to aim high in the new year, eh? Allow me to be doubly self-referential and cite the aforementioned anxiety caused by my ever-growing to-read list. It currently stands at 132 books; if I read only 36 this year, my float valve will barely dip below triple digits. Reducing my goal to a lower threshold will be a challenge in that it means reading less while the list of books to read increases. Why then am I issuing myself this particular challenge? It’s the ages-old quandary of reading vs. writing rearing up again. I must resume writing regularly if I am to complete my latest essay on attending U2 concerts, not to mention my novel-in-stalled-progress, Grandpa Art. As Ann Copeland put it in The ABCs of Writing Fiction: “If you cannot set realistic goals for income, set them for output.” That is the goal I should be focused on setting and reaching in 2012.

Court Summons

“What evil lurks in the stab wounds to the heart of a woman who should be deceased, not possessed?” That is the riddle Matthew Swift must unravel after he is unwittingly summoned into a burning building and finds his conjoined selves lying in a pool of another person’s blood. That person turns out to be Swift’s compatriot Oda, who asks him to help her, and to kill her. Someone else has clearly made an attempt at the latter, but Oda is unnaturally clinging to life. Oda, otherwise known to Swift as “Psycho-bitch,” has threatened to kill Swift for being a sorcerer on numerous occasions, but on this occasion she is requesting her death at his marked hands. Swift’s hands are marked because he is the Midnight Mayor, and, as such, he is drawn into not only burning buildings, but is also embroiled by his office’s treaty in the conflict between the Neon Court and the Tribe, two diametrically opposed factions with a longstanding feud that has boiled over. Then Oda’s eyes take on the look of boiled pudding, and to meet her gaze is to meet your own encephelo-exsanguination. If that weren’t enough, Swift is caught between the projection of his dead mentor, Mr. Bakker, and his new apprentice, Penny. It all adds up to one hellishly long day in court for the Midnight Mayor!

Super-Spatial

There is an inherent drawback in proclaiming a protagonist to be the chosen one in chapter one: it eliminates his choices from that point on. As an historical record it makes sense to peer back in time at the formation of individual greatness, but then there is about as much tension in an historical record as there is water on Arrakis.

Like Jason in A World Without Heroes, young Paul Atreides is uprooted from his home world and forced to fend for himself on an inhospitable world where heroes aren’t welcome. Unlike Jason, Paul’s internal motivations aren’t believable. Not that Paul is a regular kid like Jason; oh no, Paul is special. He’s been trained by his mother in the Bene Gesserit ways of mental discipline, by his father the Duke in diplomacy and political intrigue, and by universe-renowned combatants in martial arts. When his breeding and background are introduced to the mind-altering spice found only on Arrakis, he becomes super-special. Make that super-spatial: he is able to view the continuum of time in all its’ endless possibilities. This does not make him omniscient, as the landscape is constantly in motion without linear progression, but it does boost his pre-spice prescience. It’s a paradox, in that the man with unlimited choices presented to him is the man without any choices. He is the chosen one, not the one doing the choosing.

According to Dr. Kynes, Imperial ecologist on Arrakis and, as Liet, leader of the Fremen, “the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error.” Yet Paul, with his myriad futures before him, has few accidents and makes hardly any errors. The boy-prophet isn’t allowed to be a boy. After he and his mother are stranded in the desert he loses the backpack that contains all the necessities of life, including water. Like a young MacGyver he rigs up just the thing he needs to locate and excavate it from the sandslide that buried it. When Jason loses his pack of supplies in A World Without Heroes, it’s gone and he has to make do without the supplies it held. In perhaps his most vulnerable moment, Paul is alone with Chani, a Fremen girl. They have just taken another hit from the sandworm-bong and slipped away from the cave party to ah, share each other (think Matrix: Revolutions here), and Chani admits she’s afraid. It’s the first time for both of them, so Paul goes the old “you’re the girl of my dreams, and in my dreams you’re holding our baby” route, only it’s not just a pick-up line, it’s a vision. No need for a prophylactic when you’re prophetic, eh? Not that the child is of any consequence – none of the prophecies concern the desert offspring of two unwed teens – he’s not the chosen one, and so he remains off-stage until he can be properly disposed of by a rival faction. There is no comparable scene in A World Without Heroes, as it is for a younger audience, but Jason does exhibit some genuine concern for his traveling companion’s safety, which is more than Paul expresses for his slain son.

Perhaps the book must be read as an historical record, or better yet, a legend, which would account for the cover up of any flaws the mighty hero may have had. After all, Paul isn’t just a Bene Gesserit, he is the Kwisatz Haderach, the man who can pierce the darkness that stymies the Reverend Mother. He isn’t just Usul, a member of a band of Fremen, but Muad’Dib, the prophet foretold who will lead the lost tribes out of the desert. Not only does he avenge the assassination of his father and succeed him as Duke, he outmaneuvers and unseats the Emperor (something Jason isn’t able to do in the first Beyonders book). Given the fanatical following of this religious, political, and military leader, one would not expect to read stories about how he screwed up as a kid (no cherry trees on Dune for him to chop down, ala George Washington). The book begins with the test of the gom jabbar to prove that Paul is human, not a mere animal. The rest of the book depicts him as something else entirely.

Enter the Hippo

A World Without Heroes, the first book in a highly anticipated new series by Brandon Mull, came out this spring, but I wasn’t able to get to it until the end of the year. Which puts me that much closer to Seeds of Rebellion, the next book in the Beyonders series, I suppose! This series is more like The Chronicles of Narnia than the Fablehaven series, but that shouldn’t be a deterrent for fans of Mull’s fanciful imagination. Taking two regular kids into an irregular world opens all kinds of new doors to explore – the doors alone are unusual – as Jason arrives in Lyrian by way of falling into a hippo’s gaping maw. Once there he meets Rachel, a Beyonder like himself, who traveled a different route to the same destination. When they are unable to reverse course and return home, the only path left is to seek out the word of power that will undo Maldor, the evil emperor. Maldor has crippled or corrupted any would-be-hero who opposed him, but Jason and Rachel don’t want to be heroes; they just want to get home. The setting and abilities may be fantastic, but the characters are driven by realistic goals, and that is what gives Mull’s words power over his readers.

Baby Walrus!

 

Another book cover graced by a bear, although this one is accompanied only by its icy mirror image, not a child. Polar Obsession by Paul Nicklen is a magnificent compilation of death-defying photographs. Not only did Nicklen, a National Geographic photographer who grew up among the Inuit on Baffin Island, risk his own life for these phenomenal photographs, but their intent is to defy the impending death of some of the world’s most extraordinary ecosystems.

Here we have the Svalbard of The Golden Compass in all its’ natural splendor. There be whales here: beluga, bowhead, and narwhal. Nicklen has an amazing encounter with a leopard seal trying to feed him, and a terrifying one with an elephant seal trying to flatten him. My affinity for polar bears is well documented, and there are some awesome pictures of the dwindling beasts, but it was this picture of a mother walrus and her calf that captivated me!

Battle Bears

Oddly enough, the last two books I’ve read both featured children riding bearback on the covers: Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman and The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. I was impressed by Gaiman’s American Gods, so I was curious about how he would handle a more traditional approach to Norse mythology. Odd and the Frost Giants bears little resemblance to American Gods beyond inspiration and authorship, but it was an entertaining afternoon read. After I read it I passed it on to a younger reader, and he also enjoyed it. Any tale that keeps the Northern Lights burning for future generations is admirable!

Northern Lights happens to be the original title of The Golden Compass, which I added to my list after reading “On Daemons & Dust”, an essay in Michael Chabon’s collection Maps and Legends. The appeal is undeniable: shape-shifting daemons which are oh so much more than mere animal familiars, and armored polar bears! As a former Bowdoin College football player I know a thing or two about the battles of armored Polar Bears, although we didn’t actually eat the hearts of our fallen opponents like the panserbjørne (Pullman pulls no punches in His Dark Materials, let young readers be forewarned). What really sealed it for me was finding out that all of the bears are left-handed blacksmiths – the great creatures of the north are all southpaws!

Bad Hats

“Bad hats. A bad hat could make a man right disagreeable, and that was the truth.” So goes Wayne’s theory, but the theory goes only so far; the antagonist in The Alloy of Law is a man who has always detested hats. On the other hand (head?), Wayne is continually trading hats, looking for the proper fit after his lucky hat is stolen. Of the two men on the cover, Wayne is the one touching the brim of his hat and shouldering a gun. In keeping with the characters’ proclivities the shotgun really belongs in the hands of the other man, Waxilium; however, its inclusion is an indication that this is a different sort of Mistborn book.

Calling it a Mistborn book is a bit of a misnomer, actually, as the only Mistborn mentioned are those of legend: the Survivor, the Ascendant Warrior, the Last Emperor, and the Lord Mistborn, who founded the new society some three centuries prior to the events of this book. Allomancy and Feruchemy are still prevalent, but the practitioners are granted a single ability, or, in the case of Twinborn individuals like Wax and Wayne, one of each. This opens new combinations of the abilities introduced in the first trilogy, and the emerging industrial setting provides a new arena for their use. Waxilium is able to Steelpush (Allomancy) and manipulate his weight (Feruchemy), which gives him great leaping abilities, although it’s Wayne (manipulate time and healing) who provides the book with levity (he could be a descendant of the noble Smedry line, for those who have read the Alcatraz series).

The Alloy of Law is not the beginning of the next Mistborn trilogy, which Sanderson has stated will be urban fantasy, but an intercessory story that bridges the two trilogies. As such it is a stand alone book, although the reader would be at a disadvantage without having read the first trilogy. It’s an entertaining inversion of the great caper that inspired the first Mistborn book, as theft once again becomes a engine of social change (the quarry is more than just lucky hats).

Regarding the Romantics

According to Keats, “The excellence of every Art is its intensity.” To this I would add the mark of an excellent work of art is in its implicitly directing you to others of its kind. As such The Stress of Her Regard is excellent, in that it lead me, like Michael Crawford, to explore Keats, Shelley, and Byron. My second reading was therefore far better informed (from reading their letters in particular). In some respects this was unveiling the man behind the curtain, but it served to transform the fascination of a reader into the admiration of a writer. I also took some satisfaction in being able to visualize Byron’s fencing maneuvers this time, as I took an elementary fencing class shortly after my first reading. After reading “A Time to Cast Away Stones” I paid particular attention to Edward John Trelawny the second time through. The Stress of Her Regard is intense and excellent and remains one of my all-time favorites!

Super-Sized Finish

Finished my summer reading back where I started it: with Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan series. The departure of the Leviathan in this finale is, well, a departure from the first two books. I did get a few glimpses of the great Russian Bear, although not in the setting I anticipated. The title creature was neither a Russian Bear nor the mythological Ziz; the Goliath wasn’t a creature at all, but a creation of the inventor Nikola Tesla. The eccentric inventor has a role in the conclusion, as does the news- paper magnate William Randolph Hearst and the revolutionary general Pancho Villa. Colorful characters, to be sure, but this is a case of strange facts making fiction a bit too strange. I would have preferred to see the Leviathan remain involved with events in the European theater rather than deviate into motion picture theaters. The prince-in-hiding gets the girl-disguised-as-a-boy in the end though, so there is a satisfactory resolution for the principle characters.

Cage Match

Two young apprentices are groomed for a magical grudge match and thrust into the ring. Make that three rings, as the black-and-white stripes of circus tents form the bars of the cage wherein our young gladiators are forced to fight to the finish. This is no ordinary good vs. evil standoff or run-of-the-mill wizard’s duel, however. There is no open confrontation in this battle of showmanship. One of the combatants never sets foot in the arena, vying for the title belt from afar. As the opponents push each other to new heights of ability and imagination they gain a mutual admiration for one another. When the distant contestant is unmasked, that admiration becomes attraction. Inexorably bound to battle it out, can they overcome their emotions and destroy the foe who inspires their performance? The result would be a Pyrrhic victory and the loss of every attraction (both the circus variety and the personal) they built together.

If I cut you down to a thing I can use,
I fear there will be nothing good left of you
“Lose Control” by Evanescence

Evanescence is a good fit for this deeply atmospheric debut novel. Erin Morgenstern is both an artist and an author, and she has designed a deck of tarot cards to accompany the book. I imagine it being something along the lines of Tara McPherson meets tarot, although it will probably be more reserved in its imagery. Morgenstern is not reserved in depicting the imagery within The Night Circus, and her vivid artistic descriptions add to the languid, timeless sense of the book. I could have done without some of the intercessory chapters attempting to place me in the circus as a spectator – I was already in the story – although I can understand Morgenstern’s intent to exhibit as much of the circus as possible and keep the reader entranced. The final coda felt tacked on; it kept my interest, but it felt like a separate story. The story Morgenstern unfolds is magically self-contained, like a circus appearing overnight, and needs no addenda. Certain elements are reminiscent of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, one of my favorite books, and there are traces of movies like The Prestige, Despicable Me, and MegaMind as well.