"In The Heights," "The Magician's Elephant," "Curse of the Bane"

We were lucky enough last night to go see "In the Heights," the Broadway musical, at the Boston Opera House with my niece. What a great show! Kyle Beltran as Usnavi was fantabulous. I can't imagine anyone doing the role any better. *Loved* his voice, his persona. Great sets, lighting, score, big music numbers, a terrific cast. Runs through the weekend; definitely go!

Just finished reading The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo today. The gorgeous cover illustrated by Yoko Tanaka made me grab it; the name Kate DiCamillo sure didn't hurt any. Sweet, elegant, brimful with affection for all its characters. It made me cry. Strongly recommended.

I'm working my way through Joseph Delaney's Last Apprentice series, and read Curse of the Bane a few days ago. If you enjoy tales of the macabre, or if you have a middle-school boy who does, these are worth their price.

Catching up

2010 is nine days old and I still haven't jotted in my journal the list of goals and plans for the year that I'd intended to record. Off to a great start! The second half of 2009 was a whirlwind of travel, book events, and crazy writing deadlines, and my blogging wasn't the only thing to suffer neglect because of it. Now that the holidays are behind me I'm digging, sifting, dusting, and sorting my way through the chaos. There were so many wonderful visits to schools, libraries, and bookstores that I should have recorded, and perhaps I'll be able to catch up on that a bit. For now I'll lead in with the present.

I just finished reading The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch today and enjoyed it thoroughly. A great read for fans of spooky stories. Boys and girls should enjoy it equally. I especially love the artwork.

Got a package from UPS yesterday from Bloomsbury, always a happy thing. This contained an editorial letter and marked up manuscript for my upcoming hardcover teen novel, slated for October 2010 release. The current title is SECONDHAND CHARM, which may or may not remain the final title. I'd say there's about a 70% chance it will stick. Must turn around some revisions quickly. I'm looking forward to diving back into that manuscript.

Over the holidays I cleaned out my office, with the help of my friend Diane. This was a monumental achievement. Prior to the great purge, I could barely walk across the floor to reach my desk. I had to leap and hope. But now the bare surfaces sparkle and pretty little houseplants catch the light from the south-facing bay windows. My thought was that with an orderly office I'd have a less cluttered mind with which to envision new book projects in 2010. But I still seem to spend all my writing time tucked under the blankets in bed with my laptop resting on my thighs. So I'm not sure I deserve such a pretty office.

My newspaper column with The MetroWest Daily News is another thing I neglected in 2009, so I was happy to squeak out a column for them that appeared last Sunday. Here's a link to "You can always count on Mom." I hope to submit more soon.

Everyone's healthy and happy here at Camp Berry. Hope the same is true for you.

Thief of Time, or, Why I Idolize Terry Pratchett and Why I Am Unlikely to Write a Time Paradox Novel

It never fails. I crack open a new Terry Pratchett novel, and before I've turned page one I'm writhing on the floor (figuratively, at my age), groaning, "I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy!" I'm scorpion-zapped by the knowledge that I'm in the company of one so vastly my superior, in wit, wisdom, and wordplay, that it's almost enough to make me hang up my word processor. But here ecstasy and torture overlap, and I happily plow onward. Someday I may need to write an essay, for my own education, on all that Terry Pratchett does so well, but that sounds suspciously like an Auditor thing to do.

But back to my unworthiness. The first Pratchett novel I read that was not written for children was Wyrd Sisters, and before I'd gotten five pages in I ran for my college paperback of Macbeth, not wanting to be deprived of a single allusion. Thus Pratchett is both delicious and nutritious. I don't know if all his novels are a direct parody of a cultural touchstone, or not. Thief of Time, as near as I can tell, wreaks happy havoc upon snips of the book of Revelation. Any attempt at plot summary would be futile. I'm going to need to read it again myself. Time paradox stories always make my eyes glaze over. Sooner or later, every fantasy series inevitably wanders into that sand trap and loses its credibility somewhat thereby. Do they ever work? I would scarcely know. I'm in it for the yarn. Smoke and mirrors don't bother me much, unless the failure is so obvious, so lame, so hastily contrived by Hollywood committee, that even a metaphysical dumbhead like me can spot it plain as the zit on your nose. Oh, but I'm dithering off topic. The thesis of this post is that Terry Pratchett makes me swoon, and snort out loud with glee, and those are two things I like a man to make me do. I mean, a book. If there are any time wrinkles in Thief of Time, Pratchett greases his machinery so well with yak butter-whimsy that it doesn't matter anyway. All roads lead to Ankh-Morpork, The Death of Rats and Quoth the Raven are never far away, Nanny Ogg has a cameo and Igor gets featured billing, the Schoolteacher from Hell finds a soulmate, War finds relief from intermittent flatulence, much weight is attached to a bottle of strawberry yogurt, the murderous properties of chocolate creams are laid bare, and proper stress is laid upon Rule One: "Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling man!"

Good rule, Rule One. But if you've never read a Discworld novel, Rule One for you is, Do So.

The Princess Bride's Perfections

Our family watched The Princess Bride tonight. It was the first time any of our boys had seen it, the first time I'd seen it in probably twelve years. We'd purchased the Blu-Ray disc from a bargain bin, and the quality was fantastic. I loved seeing how much my boys enjoyed it. The Fred Savage & grandpa dynamic was perfect for them.

As I watched, I was struck by all the elements that were so successfully packed into this story. I confess, I haven't read the book, but using the movie as a source, I jotted down a list of The Princess Bride's assets, just as Westley would have liked. Character types. Plot devices. Props. Motivations. Defining qualities. Here's my brain dump. I'd love to hear any additions I missed.

Romance, right off the bat
Thrown within minutes into huge problems: Westley dead, Buttercup betrothed to froglike prince, and wham, she’s kidnapped.
Pastoral beauty, magnificent geologic variety, creating evocative settings
- opening farmland
- festive city settings
- eel-infested waters
- Cliffs of Insanity
- mountains, ravine
- Fire Swamp
- Thieves Forest
- Royal castle w/ chapel, dining hall, kitchens, honeymoon chamber, corridors

Impossible or improbable settings: fire traps, sand pits, sheer cliffs
Florin & Gilder, rival kingdoms
An artificial plot to start a war
Kidnapping
Attempted murder
Chases, rescues
Swordfights
Rescues
Impossible feats of strength
Poisons
A flaming holocaust cloak
Contest of wits, daring
Play-acting
Long-brewing revenge
An evil prince
A sinister advisor
A pirate with a pen-name
A giant
An alcoholic swordsman
An egotistical mercenary
A mutant with a recognizable mark: the six-fingered man
A beautiful princess (least interesting part, oddly, titular character and focus of exciting male activity)
A senile king
An underworld descent where hero must die: The Pit of Despair
Hidden entries (into the pit)
A resentful miracle worker and his nagging crone wife
Other hideous crone: the “Boo” lady who castigates Buttercup
An albino stooge
Mad science: Count Rogin doubles as evil advisor and evil Faustian/Nazi sicko scientist/inventor
Freak monsters (Rodents of Unusual Size, Shrieking Eels)
Storming a castle
Blocking a wedding
Reviving a dead man
Miraculously locating “the man in black”
Miracle cure via chocolate coated pill
Dead, and yet …

For each character, a defining attribute

Buttercup: brainless beauty
Westley: indestructible confidence
Inigo Montoya: passionate sense of honor
Vezzini: unscrupulous greed, ego
Fezzik: unflappable, benign
Humperdinck: arrogance
Rogin: perverse sadism, sycophant
Miracle Max: wisecracking
Wife: calls it like she sees it

Thoughts on THE ILIAD

Tonight I finished listening to THE ILIAD of Homer on audiobook. First I listened to a great audio course from The Teaching Company, taught by Elizabeth Vandiver, on The Iliad, then I listened to the poem itself. So the Trojan War has occupied my commute and my walks for weeks now. I wish I was studying the poem in a classroom setting and could discuss it with other interested students. For a poem purportedly written some 2800 years ago about events thought to take place 3400 years ago, so much of it feels startlingly contemporary. To put myself in a place where I could appreciate it best, I tried in my limited way to set aside whatever cultural biases were incongruous with Homer's (if there was a Homer. I know.) and let myself be led by the values manifest in the text. I tried to understand Achilles as a hero and as a wrathful figure, whose first wrath was for bruised honor and whose later wrath was caused by inconsolable grief. I wondered why he remained heroic, though his inaction cost the Greeks so much. I tried to see his actions through the lens of a different code of ethics, one valuing devotion to a panoply of gods at war with each other; one where Fate could be blamed for all things; one prizing retribution and conquest. I tried to understand the motivation for the war. Was it really Helen? All the jargon from the Greeks in the beginning about avenging her cries of pain when she was raped by Paris don't seem to gel at all with the relationship between Helen and Paris. In the Odyssey she refers to herself as a whore for her adulterous union with him. So which was it? Does it matter? Was it about woman as property? Or was that simply a justification for land and wealth conquest? The scope of the war was baffling -- so much time, so much cost, so much death. How does any of it make sense?

Things I loved: the sumptuous language. The richness of metaphor. The gruesomeness of battle details. The vividly memorable and wholly human characters. The many moments of deep pathos. Laugh out loud moment: Zeuss's praise for Hera's sex appeal. Unforgettable images: Achilles' battle yell in the ditch with a cap of fire, his chasing Hector around the city, his battle with the river. Priam's grief, Hector's valor, Patroclus's courage, Aegamemnon's waffling, Hecuba's pleading, Odysseus's arrogance, Hera's cunning, Athene's ruthlessness. The starkness of specific details which carry the ring of truth. The deep complexity of Achilles -- a contemplative musician, a devoted friend, an arrogant boaster, an invincible warrior, a citizen of his community and an exception to the rules of community, a servant of the gods and an impious slaughterer, one who honors and desecrates, one unable to forgive, yet one who fully forgives and empathizes.

American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang

I realize I may be the last person on the planet to read American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, but even so, here I am posting my thoughts.

Superior storytelling on countless levels, including but certainly not only the graphical. Skillful and convincing weaving of comedy, legend, satire, and contemporary school story. A sophisticated and unsentimental look at race, culture, and identity, and, simultaneously, an impressively candid tribute to the author's faith. Funny and poignant and painful, a hopeful, many-layered narrative, and a watertight comic. Strongly recommended for approximately grades 7 and up.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

A reverent tribute to The Jungle Book which moved me as much for its devotion to the beloved classic as for its affection for its characters. There's a boundless, ungovernable quality to the universe Gaiman conjures. It combines life, afterlife, other realms, and ancient legend, and while I imagine this aspect of the novel could incur criticism, it felt appropriate to me. Gaiman's universe is as brooding, savage, and ungovernable as Kipling's jungle. A novel filled with deep compassion; strongly praised and recommended. Reading The Jungle Book first is encouraged.