Devon Trevarrow Flaherty's Blog, page 36

Book Review: War Horse

This book was not what I expected, though if I had seen the movie that came out several years ago, I wouldn’t have been surprised. To be frank, War Horse sounds like a book I would not enjoy, but it was on the required reading list for the middle schoolers I teach this year, so I read it. I was surprised that I not only enjoyed it, but that it was even more like the type of book I wouldn’t like, and still I enjoyed it. To a point, anyways.

Image from Amazon.com

War Horse is about a horse. (Strike one for me, personally, but I am aware that many readers love horses, so this is a draw.) It’s also told from the point of view of the horse. (Now we’re on strike two.) It’s WW1 (okay, I’m listening), in England (even better), and a colt goes up on the auction block. Bought by a drunk meanie, he is taken home to a teenage boy who really falls for him and names him Joey. The rest of the short book is a series of whip-fast transitions as Joey is sold to the war effort, changes hands several times, and the boy looks for him.

It’s not fantasy, exactly: the horse isn’t talking and it’s basically realistic except that we can see into the mind of the horse (and the horse understands human language very, very well). Joey and the other horses, are only mildly personified. It makes it interesting, for sure, seeing a war through the eyes of a horse, seeing life through the eyes of a horse. I suppose what it accomplishes, more than learning about horses (though it does some of that) is introduce middle grades readers to the world of warfare in an off-handed way. There’s something innocent and lighthearted about it—which comes from the horse narrator and also a series of kind-hearted characters who are swept up into the war—while there’s also the atrocity, death, and sadness of war. It’s deft. It’s unique. And it is a great book for middle grades for both its gentleness and seriousness, it’s hope and sorrow. I can see why this book was recommended reading and I would recommend it for your middle graders, especially for classroom assignments, and not just because I thought it was good, but because besides teaching both history and character it is the type of book that most middle grades readers will enjoy: about animals, first person, and brief while also using simple, straight-forward language in interesting situations with engaging characters.

Note: There’s a reference to the Light Brigade, so it would be a good time to read “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

QUOTES

“‘S’pose I know her a lot better than I know myself, and I like her a lot better'” (p55).

“He laughed to himself, he said, because if he did not laugh he would cry” (p97).

“…but no man can move a horse that does not wish to be moved, and I did not want to go” (p104).

MOVIE

War Horse was a movie that I remember coming out in 2011 because it did really well at the box office and with reviewers. However, as I have said, it was not the type of story to lure me to the theater. I will be watching it after my son reads it and I’ll review it then. I imagine it’s going to be pretty good.

Book Review: Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

Let’s just establish, right away, that though I gave Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky only three stars out of five (I think, generously), I will still be recommending it. Sometimes books are important for a reason, but maybe they’re not the world’s best book. They fill a void. And until that niche expands, well, you’ve got what you’ve got. Tristan Strong is experiencing a lot of popularity right now, and though that often happens in middle grades to mediocre books, at least this time it’s an important mediocre book.

Image from Amazon.com

Already, I know some people will disagree with me and say the writing is great, what am I talking about? There are some things about Kwame Mbalia’s writing that I can appreciate: the character development (at least for a popular MG book), the up-to-date accessibility (and humor) of his main character, Tristan, and the imagination, for a start. I suppose there is also a fair amount of research done there, too, though I wouldn’t be one to tell you whether it was accurate or not. (I mean, this is a fantastical world, but it is also based on existing folklore and religion to an extent.) Well, let’s talk about what this book is.

Tristan Strong is a third-generation boxer who has just miserably lost his first bout, when his grandparents show up at his Chicago home. They are taking him to their Alabama farm in order to work and heal from the death of his best friend, Eddie, a death that Tristan blames on himself. Right away, strange things start happening, and the journal that the boys had used to write down Nana’s stories starts to glow, a mouthy, sticky baby doll breaks into his room at night, and a grove in the forest where the Bottle Tree sits seems to have a presence about it. In traditional fantasy style, Tristan falls through a hole in the earth into a magical place full of the African American and African gods, normally at odds but being attacked by the same, growing menace. Tristan discovers that he may have caused this mayhem, but that he also might be the hero.

Well, let’s see. This book is special because it introduces children to African and African American characters and stories from across the centuries. It also has a number of very strong, positive Black role models, including all of the main characters and indeed, almost all the characters. It’s also special because Tristan’s strengths lie in three areas: boxing (physical strength), sure, but also in storytelling. Storytelling is actually portrayed as a super-power, which is pretty cool and relevant to the culture portrayed. The third? Character. Tristan is not a static character, and though he starts off a “good kid,” he still has to grow in several areas in order to rise to the occasion. Another thing, there’s always the tension there of kid-adult relationships, but there are many loving relationships in this book and plenty of great authority figures. Many, many middle grades books don’t even come close to walking this wire as skillfully as Mbalia does.

So why would I give Tristan Strong a “generous” three stars? The writing and plotting. Basically, though the fantasy elements, depth, and characters shine, the rest of it is only passable. Actually, sometimes not even passable. The plot itself is rapid, sure, but not compelling. Things just happen, and you’re not exactly sure where you’re headed next, not really clear on what the bigger picture is. It’s so rapid, in fact, that it’s muddled. And Mbalia’s writing often devolves into one of my biggest writing pet peeves: not making spatial sense. In fact, I’m pretty sure this book may be the worst I’ve ever seen, in this category. Many times, a character would show up where they couldn’t be based on the description a moment before, or a character would show up when you had assumed something else about them or someone would touch something or grab something even though they were far away or—and this was a big one—the POV character, Tristan, would see something he couldn’t possibly have seen (through walls, at a great distance, etc.). Things would happen simultaneously that didn’t make sense, time would conveniently stretch out so that a conversation could take place while an enemy approached… I think you get it. In other words, while we’re buying into the characters and, a little less so, the overall story, the scenes broke down time and time again due to imprecise storyboarding. And it’s clunky. Including the dialogue.

Wait, what? That’s what I kept thinking. Or, nuh-uh. Can’t be.

Which of course really disturbs our ability to be lost in the story, experiencing this very modern and kid-oriented fantasy world. Perhaps part of what could have helped was more description of places, but I think it’s really just poor description that does it, here. And another thing: the allegory or symbolism. I’m torn on this, because the symbolism is there and it could be explored, but I think it’ll go over most middle grades readers’ heads. I mean, you have this whole Africa versus African American thing going on (Midpass being a reference to the African diaspora via the Middle Passage and the gods being from the Old or New World stories), and you have the great evil of African Slavery repeated in ever-worsening, ever more disturbing characters (including King Cotton, creatures made of manacles, creatures made of old dilapidated ships, even cargo holds), AND you have the dying of the stories/pain and suffering not being talked about. Bottling things up creates tension and disruption. There are so many layers and so much allusion that it’s both one of the best aspects of the book and also perhaps too much for a popular middle grades book. It would have to be studied to be appreciated by most kids, I think. And by appreciated, I mean absorbed.

In the end, you have a very typical fantasy story with compelling characters and growth that ends in a very typical way. With strong Black characters, a healthy relationship with authority, and the sharing of African and African American story and culture (not to mention a whole lot of historical and ideological symbolism), it’s a book that I think kids should read, but don’t expect me to read it again. I can’t handle the writing (specifically the scene set-ups) again and I certainly can’t see this book being used to teach literature, despite it’s glorifying of story-telling.

Book Review: Life of Pi

I have read Life of Pi a couple of times and I like it. I have reasons, and I’ll give them to you in a sec. I also always leave it a little disappointed. I think my main beef with this book is that Yann Martel tried too hard to sell us his perceived moral. Turns out, what he has to say about religion isn’t all that compelling, but what the book says about guilt, is much more so.

Image from Amazon.com

Life of Pi is a fantasy story (which really sits pretty close to magic realism) about an Indian teenager who grows up in the 60s and 70s, the son of a zookeeper and intensely interested in religion. When his family decides to emigrate to Canada, they crate up all the sold animals and embark on a giant tanker ship across the Pacific. After the ship sinks in a storm in the middle of the night, Pi is left alone on a lifeboat with a tiger, a hyena, a chimpanzee, and a wounded zebra. How could he possibly make it more than 250 days without being eaten alive?

Note: If you stop reading halfway through this book, you have not fairly experienced it. I am okay with you disliking it and stopping, but I’m just telling you that it doesn’t work, this time, to judge it based on the first half or even two-thirds. What happens in the last quarter, even the last several pages, is like the chemical at the end of an experiment that crystallizes the solution and shows us what we were doing all along. So.

What I like: the twist (when you realize this story is getting out of hand) and then the double twist (when you realize this book isn’t at all what you thought it was). The detailed description that brings things to life, like you’re really there, stranded on a boat in the middle of the ocean with a tiger and you have boils on your butt. Or you’re eating a raw turtle. Or whatever. The bits of wit and humor. The many science-y facts (many zoological) as well as the keen observation of biological life that brings it into a highly-saturated focus. The thing is, Life of Pi should drag out to make you feel the pain, like The Man and the Sea or The Pearl, so I’m mostly okay with how long it can feel. Also, you like Pi, which is a win for the character, because—in my reading of it—he’s trying to absolve himself. Pi is a character so observant, smart, and passionate that when we put on our Pi suit it’s like we’ve never truly seen the world before and we’re worn raw with how much we perceive and sense and think.

What I don’t like: the twist. How can I like it and not like it? It really seemed to come out of nowhere, but then it settles in and you might even grow to appreciate it, as I did. And perhaps the book does drag out a bit much, especially with the religious stuff. When Martel drags things out at sea, it is because he is vividly painting this alternate reality so that we can almost taste Pi’s regret and his need to do it over. But when Martel hoovers over religious themes for too long, Martel’s trying to sell us a package that is not really what we get. As I said before, this book is not about religion or about God or even about belief (ultimately, at least not in the way it’s often read). It’s about if truth can be more true told differently and, more importantly, what lengths we would go to, to hide our dark side from others and even ourselves. Awkward, especially when Martel brackets the story with a real-fake writer researching a real-fake man and one of the characters tells him, emphatically, “I have a story that will make you believe in God.” This is a rabbit trail. Do not believe it. Wish this line was NOT there.

Besides not helping us believe in God and instead showing us what guilt can do to a man, though, there are juxtaposing layers of the story that beg questions about truth and reality, fiction and fact, similar to The Things They Carried¸ which I happened to just review. It’s not quite as direct or even as successful as O’Brien’s masterpiece, but it would make for some great discussion. Does it matter which version of Pi’s story is real? Which one is told? Which one ends up being truer? Are they essentially the same story? Yadda Yadda. While Martel eventually crashes his own party, I think, we can still strike off on our own conversation.

Here’s what I have to say, with SPOILERS: Like I said, I think the real theme of this book was what happened to a boy who grew into a man very regretful of how he had behaved at a pivotal moment in his life. Remember, when we have doubts cast on the entire story, that includes the end all the way to Pi’s childhood. The only thing we can trust as untainted are the italics, and that only includes his life as an adult. So we know that he surrounds himself with a strange amalgamation of religions at that point, but Pi’s relationship with religion growing up and especially some of the more fanciful moments there, is in question. In other words, even these early stories of religion have to be read through the lens of a shamed boy who did terrible things under great pressure and sought to create a story that would account for the moral truth, the knowable facts, and cocoon his guilt at the same time. Certainly it’s not a book to make one believe in God, as we are led to believe in the intro. In fact, it’s almost like Pi doesn’t understand religion at all, trying to use it as a shield against his own depraved nature, as something to distance himself from his story. Maybe like amulets. Or maybe that is Martel’s point, but it’s not how people seem to interpret it. I have a friend who thinks Pi asserts that all religions are equally false, so belief in any is good. And there is an interesting switch at the end: you think Pi is asserting the truth of all faiths and then we realize he is an untrustworthy narrator and he asks his listeners which story is better and when they say the one with the animals (though it isn’t accurate,) he says, “And so it goes with God.” Which means what?!? The more beautiful life of faith is not based in reality? But it’s still better (whatever that means)? Perhaps that is what Pi is saying. But do I believe him? No, I don’t. Furthermore, I wish this line was also NOT in the book. (SPOILERS over)

Life of Pi is an interesting tale with a pretty cool twist or two, good writing, a little humor, a bit of beauty, and a lot of immersive detail.

Copyright Devon Trevarrow Flaherty 2021

PS. I got the craziest copy of this book, used, sight unseen. My daughter thinks it’s kind of amazing or at least funny, but it is seriously defaced to the point of distraction. Photo to the right.

MOVIE:

I have seen it and liked it, but I need to re-watch it to review it for you. I am a fan of Ang Lee. HERE is an old review.

QUOTES:

“…reason, that fool’s gold for the bright…” (p5)

“My fingers, which seconds before had been taste buds savouring the food a little ahead of my mouth, became dirty under his gaze. They froze like criminals caught in the act” (p7).

“Animals in the wild lead lives of compulsion and necessity within an unforgiving social hierarchy in an environment where the supply of fear is high and the supply of food low and where territory must constantly be defended and parasites forever endured. What is the meaning of freedom in such a context?” (p16).

“I know zoos are no longer in people’s good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both” (p19).

“This was all a bit much for me. The tone was right—loving and brave—but the details seemed bleak” (p28).

“It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them—and then they leap” (p28).

“To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation” (p28).

“…zoo detractors should realize that animals don’t escape to somewhere but from something” (p41).

“Christianity bustles like Toronto at rush hour. It is a religion as swift as a swallow, as urgent as an ambulance. It turns on a dime, expressed itself in an instant. In a moment you are lost or saved” (p57).

“These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves” (p71).

“I wish he hadn’t fretted so much. It’s hard on a son to see his father sick with worry” (p78).

“The ship sank…. Everything was screaming: the sea, the wind, my heart…” (p97).

“I didn’t even notice daybreak. I held on to the oar, I just held on, God only knows why” (p107).

“Without a driver this bus is lost. Our lives are over. Come aboard if your destination is oblivion—it should be our next stop” (p111).

“To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephes, creature to people the tree of your life and give it new branches” (p127).

“I was no longer crying because of my family or because of my impending death. I was far too mumb to consider either. I was crying because I was exceedingly tired and it was time to get rest” (p131).

“With a tiger aboard, my life was over. That being settled, why not do something about my parched throat?” (p135).

“The only reason I didn’t stand up and beat it off the lifeboat with a stick was lack of strength and a stick, not lack of heart” (p136).

“Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear” (p161).

“In my experience, a castaway’s worst mistake is to hope too much and do too little” (p168).

“I have learned since that cargo ships travel too quickly for fish. You are as likely to see sea life from a ship as you are to see wildlife in a forest from a car on a highway” (p176).

“I had in my life looked at a number of starry nights, where with just two colours and the simplest of styles nature draws the grandest of pictures…” (p193).

“It was frightening, the extent to which a full belly made for a good mood” (p213).

“The salt went on eating everything with its million hungry mouths” (p238).

“As my heart exalted Allah, my mind began to take in information about Allah’s works” (p260).

“I did not scream. I think only in movies is horror vocal” (p281).

“What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell” (p285).

“’If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn’t love hard to believe?’” (p297).

“Isn’t just looking upon this world already something of an invention?” (p302).

“’So what happened, Mr. Patel? We’re puzzled. Everything was normal and then…?’ / ‘Then normal sank’” (p316).

Book Review: Lyddie

Lyddie was another in a line of middle grades historical fiction that I have read as the Middle School Language Arts teacher at the homeschool co-op I am a part of. I’ve been more impressed by the selections for this year (part of a writing curriculum based on Modern History as opposed to last year’s Medieval History). By Katherine Paterson, I had never heard of it, but I had heard of some of Paterson’s titles:

Image from Amazon.com Bridge to Terabithia Blueberries for the QueenA Sense of WonderConsider the LilliesCome Sing, Jimmy JoFlip Flip GirlJacob Have I LovedJipThe Great Gilly HopkinsParzivalPark’s QuestOn Nightingales That WeepMy Brigadista YearThe Invisible ChildThe Master PuppeteerThe King’s EqualThe Sign of ChrysanthemumThe Tale of the Mandarin DucksStories of My LifeThe Same Stuff as StarsPreacher BoyA Sense of WonderThe Day of the PelicanThe Field of the Dogs

Okay, there are actually quite a few more. She wrote a heck of a lot of books and they are very wide in their scope. For children, yes, but everything from picture books to nonfiction, fantasy to historical fiction. Maybe they aren’t even all for kids, since a couple are memoir/writing life books. You can likely find something that would interest you amongst her books, especially if you are a kid or someone teaching kids. (Check out her website HERE.) Having now read two of her books, I can hardly believe the same person wrote both of them. That’s not really a bad thing, I was just surprised that the same lady wrote Lyddie, Jacob Have I Loved, and Bridge to Terabithia. Didn’t see that coming. It is clear that she loves story and cultures and that she does a lot of research and writes difficult subject matter for middle schoolers. Like a Jacqueline Wilson, but time-travelling, American, and less predictable.

I was taken by this book, just enough. For middle grades historical fiction, I thought Lyddie was a real solid read. It’s not going on my all-time favorites list—I just didn’t find anything in it to love—but I would read more of her writing, which is award-winning like this one. Just an FYI: there is some real heavy stuff, including issues of a parent with mental health issues and inability to function, indenturing children, and also a boss who takes advantage of his young, female workers. It doesn’t get real explicit, but it would need to be discussed, partly because it is a little unclear (particularly if you are a contemporary eleven-year-old). In fact, I had to do quite a bit of explaining to teach this book (which is great to go along with a graphic novel of Oliver Twist as well as an Oliver Twist movie version), but an especially sharp reader would find a lot in it. Once again, I found several of my students enjoying a book that I too was enjoying. I do think the student of history would be the most interested here, and that means the more mature.

The story is this: Lyddie is thirteen when a bear crashes into their farm cabin, setting off a series of events that change Lyddie’s life forever. Dad has been MIA for years now, and Mom has never quite recovered. For a little while it’s just Lyddie and her ten-year-old brother on the farm, but then Lyddie’s mom decides they’d be better off hired out to people in town. Lyddie doesn’t last long at the tavern, not when she realizes she’d be making money much faster as a factory girl. That way, she could pay off the farm debts and reunite her family before too much time has passed…

It might be a little difficult for modern kids to relate to this book. I mean, they are mostly very far removed from the hard work, abuse, and social issues of the 1700s, but they can be taught. Like I said, I found all the things to be interesting and I thought the writing was fine, too. Perhaps inspired by the Oliver Twist that showed up in the story, it’s a peek into the life of children during the dawn of the factory age.

Book Review: The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, is one of the best modern books written in the English language and I don’t know how anyone can argue otherwise. Okay, maybe I can, but this is the third time I’ve read this book and it still amazes me. The writing amazes me. The structure amazes me. The message amazes me. The insight amazes me. I suppose what it doesn’t have is a traditional plotline with the pattern of a typical story. Really, it’s set up like short stories that have been compiled into a thematic book, which in the end tell various anecdotes about the same characters during (and after) the Vietnam War. They weave together, but not into a traditional storyline. The real buzz, here, goes beyond O’Brien’s excellent writing (the Goldilocks spot between too literary and too flat), to his handling of truth and war.

Some readers get a little muddled while reading Carried. They get handed a novel—fiction!—and then all of a sudden a character named Tim O’Brien, a writer, is talking to them about his service in Vietnam. Then we look it up and, lo and behold, O’Brien was in the Vietnam War. Sometimes O’Brien pulls back from the story, like the wizard in Oz: pulls back the curtain and we see the machinery of the story. Or do we? The fact is that The Things They Carried is a novel. It is fiction. It is set up to read like a collection of short stories by a character based on O’Brien’s experiences. The fact is also that many of the names, places, and perhaps even some of the events are real. But here’s the thing: one of the main messages of the book is that fiction can be truer than fact. There are chapters of the novel that address that very thing, head on (“How to Tell a True War Story” among them). While O’Brien, the man, has been pretty evasive about what exactly is fact and even about whether or not he meant to address fact versus honesty, this is how the book is typically read and it is one of the things I love about it. Love. Stop asking about the facts, people, and learn from the truth in fiction. Sometimes it can be more truthful than the facts. Blew my mind when I read it in college, for the first time (as an English major hell-bent on becoming a writer, no less).

The other, and most obvious, theme of the book is war. Specifically the Vietnam War, but also war in general. And there is no rosy side to this portrayal of war. None. At. All. Which is, as far as I could tell, the main beef people have with this novel. Look, O’Brien went to war and he clearly didn’t see a rosy side there, so I say let him have his say. We have enough Private Ryans and Captain Americas. Jimmy Cross is an antihero, for sure, and this is the book of antiheroes. O’Brien paints the Vietnam War in the worst colors, though he’s not talking politics as much as human depravity. He digs a little bit into life after the war, too, and there is no bow on top, no closure, no happy ending. In fact, he challenges meaning and heroism in war, full stop. “If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie” (p76). He also says (keep in mind, this is fiction, but still), that a true war story is gut-level emotional, unbelievable, and never seems to end.

It is difficult, in the end, to separate Jimmy Cross (and the character Tim O’Brien) from Tim O’Brien when we talk about The Things They Carried and what it means. But honestly, even if you don’t agree with the futility and unredeemable horror of war or with the idea that fiction can be truer than fact, it’s still an amazing book. Several of the chapters are down-right poetic, and there are scenes that sear the memory and phrases that take the breath away. True, there are things you can’t “unsee,” and the book is bleak. No, disturbing is a better word. So if you can’t look a fictional first-person account of the Vietnam War in the face, then this book wasn’t really meant for you. Even though I complain about books with no “likable” characters, I take exception with this one, because the characters are despicably flawed, but also real and very compelling. And you are moved by Jimmy Cross, who is, essentially, making his case, begging you to accept that no one would have done differently in Vietnam, no one did. It was just too much for everyone, especially all the teenagers who were sent there, many forced to go by the draft. And war, by nature, is a destroyer, so stop asking it to be something else.

Image copyright Devon Trevarrow Flaherty 2021

I do love this book. I actually met Tim O’Brien at a reading and was able to exchange a few words and have him sign my beat-up copy of Carried. It was a pleasant evening, getting to hear him read and speak, and he was sweet about encouraging me as a writer, just because I’m a writer. I had re-read the book before the reading and every time I do, I wonder if I’ll like it as much as I did last time. I always do.

QUOTES:

“They all carried ghosts” (p10).

“Imagination was a killer” (p11).

“They carried the land itself … They carried the sky …. They carried gravity. …they would never be at a loss for things to carry” (p15-16).

“Kiowa admired Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’s capacity for grief” (p18).

“It was the burden of being alive” (p19).

“It wasn’t cruelty, just stage presence” (p19).

“Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to” (p21).

“They did not submit to the obvious alternative, which was simply to close the eyes and fall …. A mere matter of falling, yet no one ever fell” (p21).

“Boom-book and you were dead, never partly dead” (p24).

“The bad stuff never stops happening” (p36).

“…the war was nakedly and aggressively boring …. It was boredom with a twist, the kind of boredom that caused stomach disorders” (p37).

“’All that peace, man, it felt so good it hurt. I want to hurt it back” (p38).

“The only certainty that summer was moral confusion” (p44).

“Twenty-one years old, an ordinary kid with all the ordinary dreams and ambitions, and all I wanted was to live the life I was born to—a mainstream life—I loved baseball and hamburgers and Cherry Cokes” (p53).

“Intellect had come up against emotion” (p54).

“If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie” (p76).

“In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen” (p78).

“You can tell a true war story by the way it never seems to end” (p83).

“And in the end, really, there’s nothing much to say about a true war story, except maybe ‘Oh’” (p84).

“A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe” (p84).

“You hate it, yes, but your eyes do not” (p87).

“A thing may happen and be a total lie” (p89).

“It’s about sisters who never write back and people who never listen” (p91).

“For Rat Kiley, facts were formed by sensation, not the other way around…” (p101).

“He knew he would fall dead and wake up in the stories of his village and people” (p144).

“Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don’t” (p149).

“And his father would have nodded, knowing full well that many brave men do not win medals for their bravery, and that others win medals for doing nothing” (p160).

“…it was not a question of offensive language but of fact” (p165).

“Courage was always a matter of yes or no. Sometimes it came in degrees, like the cold; sometimes you were very brave up to a point and ten beyond that point you were not so brave” (p166).

“A good war story, he thought, but it was not a war for war stories, nor for talk of valor, and nobody in town wanted to know about the terrible stink” (p169).

“But I was present, you see, and my presence was guilt enough” (p203).

“…those high, civilized trappings had somehow been crushed under the weight of the simple daily realities” (p227).

“But in a story I can steal her soul” (p265).

“Partly willpower, partly faith, which is how stories arrive” (p272).

Book Review: Anxious for Nothing

Note: This book review is for a Christian book. I expect to review a Christian book about once a month, this year. You have been warned.

Image from Amazon.com

When I was a teenager, I found my way to Max Lucado. A pastor and Christian writer, I read everything of his. Why? Because he’s an image-painter, a word-player, a writer whose prose frolics about in fields of alliteration and metaphor as he helps even the dullest of Christians understand things on an emotional level. I went from high school to a Christian college and was surrounded by the more cerebral types of Christians, largely. I ended up in the philosophy department and, well, I had to quickly hide my battered old copies of Lucado (just as I had hid my well-loved copies of Anne of Green Gables and—yikes—Frank Peretti from the English department). I read giant tomes like Republic and Ethics (which one?) and A Prayer for Owen Meany and One hundred year of solitude (which, actually, are two of my favorite books of all time). Over the years, I have lost all the old Peretti, re-read Anne more than twenty times, and let the Lucado sit stolidly on the shelf between my Philip Yancey and Ragamuffin Gospel. (I’m a little retro in my religious reading, it seems.)

Tell you what. I have had an anxious year. I had a couple friends swoop me into a book club pretty early in the pandemic to read something edifying. I was not a huge fan of the book. However, while poking around on the internet I found a book by my good ol’ friend (nostalgia wafted into the room) Max Lucado, called Anxious for Nothing. Now that sounded like the book I needed. And I hadn’t read Lucado and his easy-speaking, Bible teaching in years and years. I couldn’t seem to convince these same friends that they also needed this book in their lives, so I left it in a file at the back of my mind (and on my Amazon wishlist). The pandemic worsened and worsened. The new year came ‘round. I started a book club for pandemic mental and emotional health. Being full of other Christian women (sort of on accident), I plopped this book into slot number one: January.

It’s a quick read. There is nothing in the Lucado library that is not a quick read. He likes short. Short sentences. Short paragraphs. Short chapters. Short books. He is concise and to the point, except for the well-placed stories, which well up everywhere. True, I’m not flipping out about his writing they way I did when I was fifteen and was writing poetry about ants and journaling with gel pens. But there’s nothing wrong with it; it’s nice, pleasant, easy writing which occasionally rises up to paint you a picture and suck you into the idea. What is it, even, that was embarrassing when I was in college? He’s not rigorous enough? He’s not traditional enough? Compared to all the stuff most Christians are reading today, I would back his stuff first just about every time. I guess what I mean to say is, no, he’s not going to argue the “finer” points of theology with you because he’s sticking with the basics of the Bible. He has said he “writes books for people who don’t read.”

For this book, we’re sticking to Philippians 4:4-8. Well, I mean he uses other Scripture, of course, but this provides the structure of the book. How do we be anxious for nothing? We celebrate God’s goodness, ask God for help, leave our concerns with Him, and meditate on good things. (Gratitude, prayer, trust, and worship/obedience, sort of.) While a ride so smooth and brief over these four tactics that it seems almost over before you’ve begun, there is still great wisdom in applying these Bible verses in anxious times. I found a lot of really good stuff here, and if you could find a friend or ten to go along with you, this book would probably work best doing the reflection questions and scripture memorization after each of the eleven chapters, taking it a little slower than I managed before I realized all that was there at the end of the text.

There have been some complaints that Lucado undermines anxiety as a disease with this book. I have to disagree. He mentions near the beginning that some people will need professional help to deal with their anxiety. Certifiable anxiety is not really what he’s talking about here. There is a difference between Anxiety Disorder and anxiety. He does not speak directly to the first. And if you have Anxiety Disorder, this book could help you along your much longer path or it might annoy you because you’d think, “Not that simple, bud!” No, it’s not that simple. The truths in this book—the truths in the Good Book—are long-haul truths, which take practice and surrender and trust, and for some people, therapy and medication. Even those of us with garden-variety anxiety will need to revisit the ideas in Anxious for Nothing more than once or twice to find calm. Or peace. I did find his generalizations and hyperbole a little annoying sometimes, like he wasn’t really relating to me for a minute. But a study of Philippians four escorted by a chill, pleasant-sounding, reassuring, story-teller—in my case, an old friend—is a great way to get from point A to point A+1.

QUOTES:

“Fear is the pulse that pounds when you see a coiled rattlesnake in your front yard. Anxiety is the voice that tells you, Never, ever, for the rest of your life, walk barefooted through the grass” (p4).

“We want certainty, but the only certainty is the lack thereof …. That’s why the most stressed-out people are control freaks” (p24).

“You thought the problem was your calendar, your marriage, your job. In reality it is this unresolved guilt” (p45).

“God’s sovereignty, on the other hand, bids us to fight the onslaught of fret with the sword that is etched with the words but God” (p57).

“The Lord is near! You are not alone. You may feel alone. You may think you are alone. But there is never a moment in which you face life without help. God is near” (p70).

“…they had the audacity to tell the Creator of the world that nothing could be done because there wasn’t enough money” (p73).

“Do not think for a moment that the power of prayer resides in the way we present it” (p85).

“Let this ‘throwing’ be your first response to bad news. As you sense anxiety welling up inside you, cast it in the direction of Christ. Do so specifically and immediately” (p85).

“The good life begins, not when circumstances change, but when our attitude toward them does” (p93).

“Worry refuses to share the heart with gratitude” (p95).

“Your problem is not your problem but the way you see it” (p117).

“Make it your aim to cling to Christ. Abide in Him” (p132).

“I can make myself miserable, or I can make myself some lemonade” (p150).

Book Review: Preppers Long-Term Survival Guide

I enjoyed Prepper’s Long-Term Survival Guide by Jim Cobb WAY too much. Part of me was curious when I put this on the year’s reading list, and part of me was being funny. Guess there really is a latent Prepper inside of me, or maybe just a Boy Scout. I love being prepared! Or maybe it’s just shopping and hoarding that I love. Or all three.

Image from Amazon.com

So, really, I read this book because I started a Pandemic book club. There are two lists running simultaneously for this club. One of them is geared toward mental and emotional health and the other is toward practical and physical survival. We began with a spiritual/Christian book about finding peace anywhere at any time, which I’ll get to reviewing in a sec. As for the other list, I kinda laughed as I announced Prepper’s. And kinda didn’t laugh, because we have been in a pandemic for ten months at this point, it seems to only get worse and worse, and have also been through periods of quarantine, panic, and resource deprivation. Thankfully, the lack of resources hasn’t gone much beyond masks, hand sanitizer, disinfectant, and for awhile there, toilet paper and chicken (although, with hurricanes and winter storms here, I have also been through gas shortages, flooding, and many bread and milk famines). At this point, though, it’s not hard for me to imagine what a different event could have done to my supply chain and for how long. What if I had no access to water? Or enough food? Or electricity? Or transportation? Or internet? Or the government? Or emergency services? Or medicine? Whatever. My point is that if I lost access to even one of those things for a prolonged period—a situation I can now imagine pretty easily—I would be in some trouble. So I thought we could start our “other” pandemic reading list with something very basic: a post-apocalyptic guide which might have come in handy last year.

Let me say some good things about this book, as someone who has not read any other books in the field. (Though I did choose this one because it came highly recommended.) Broken down by sections that covered each of your basic post-apocalyptic needs (water, food, medicine, hygiene, shelter, security, tools, currency, community, and even some entertainment), it contained lots of easy and really low-cost or even no-cost ideas. This is a practical book. It doesn’t go deep enough to be your only book on the subject, if it interests (or concerns) you, but Cobb constantly points you in the direction of other resources: websites, books, classes, training, etc. It would take someone a long time to build up their essential supplies, because it would take some cash and even more time. (If you took it to the extreme, it would require some real life adjustments, too.) The point of this book is to give others access to the knowledge of the Preppers, without making you start from square one. I found Cobb’s writing to be engaging, especially for something so chock-full of the nitty gritty and information. I thought he was funny and even light-hearted, considering his topic. He felt warm and inviting, while also gently telling me that I would for sure need guns to keep me from being killed, raped, etc.

Yes, this is the side of the book (weapons, security), and of Prepping, is what I suppose freaks a lot of people out. The truth is, you don’t have to think there is going to complete fall-out to go ahead and stock up on the necessities in case of a situational catastrophe (like a major earthquake or terrorist attack or something very feasible), but Preppers follow that line of thinking all the way to the very worst case scenario. In that scenario—let’s face it—you would need to protect yourself and your family. Let’s just hope it never gets to that. If you’re a pacifist, fine, but you would have to figure out how to police the people around you without incarceration, law enforcement, a justice system, etc. In the worst case scenario. Cobb also warns that some people can go too far with their prepping, at least in an emotional sense, and l found his advice to be level-headed, calm, and to give options while expressing the cold, hard reality of a possible future. Honestly, my studies of history let me know all the time what a privileged and cushy time we live in now. Most the people of history did not have options when it came to empowering themselves or being taken advantage of. I’m rooting for democracy. Speaking of which,

the other day, I saw a friend on social media refer to far-right Republicans as “Preppers.” Prepping may be from political motivation, but the hobby—or even way of life—is not political in nature. It should run the scope of the political spectrum, though perhaps there are parts of the spectrum—the far fringes, mostly—that would more readily embrace this practice, would all but require it, considering their doomsday prophecies brought on by conspiracy theories, etc. This does not mean that other people can’t guess that eventually the poo is going to hit the fan in one way or another and determine that they want to be a little or a lot prepared—thus “Prepper”—when whatever that is happens. I mean, it kinda starts with an emergency kit in the car, a day bag for hiking, and a Bug Out Bag for Hurricane season. (I also thought it was interesting that this same friend is a natural Prepper: very independent, constantly learning and diversifying herself, strong, and does things all the time like bake bread and raise goats.) Like I mentioned, I think that this year has driven home the idea that unexpected, unpredicted things will come. I have always kept a weary eye out, just as that student of history, since all empires collapse without fail. But when and how that will happen; well, it’s felt closer, lately, realizing that politics, disease, and/or an environmental crises or event could really mess with my way of life. The result may not be as bat-poop crazy as our postapocalyptic canon portrays it, but if my family is without even one sector of what we need, I don’t think having a plan B in place would be a terrible hobby. It doesn’t have to mean you’re stocking up on firearms. But a rain barrel and a garden count as forethinking while helping you ease off the environment-heavy grid and giving you some peace of mind. How very independent and modern of you.

Cobb says that this book is not really for beginners, but I didn’t have any trouble understanding what he was saying or keeping up. If you are considering doing some prepping of your own, this seems like a resource you would want to have on hand and even work through. There are checklists in the back as well as lists of sources, so I honestly think it’s a great place to start. Each chapter begins with a fictional, ongoing account of a family surviving after an EMP strike that takes out all the electricity. These sections are mildly interesting and written just fine, though it was the specific thoughts and advice that kept me riveted. Yes, this could scare you and make you feel resentful, like he’s making a big stink over nothing. On the other hand, Cobb thinks that this is the time to do some things, some of them from items you already have around your house, to be proactive instead of reactive. Yes, the book is sometimes stone cold in its estimation of things (though I’ll point out there is a whole chapter about establishing a representational and protective community with the neighbors you haven’t yet shot and also the hopeful conclusion that he believes in the resilience of humanity), but it’s also realistic (considering this is only a possibly future) and chock full of factoids, exposing a way of life that I was interested in observing and thinking about in relation to my own life.

A COUPLE QUOTES:

“Yes, there exists the distinct possibility tht during your lifetime something may happen to turn the world, or at least your world, on its ear …. Right now, at least, you have the luxury of being able to take steps, to make plans, so you’ll be able to take steps, to make plans, so you’ll be in a better position” (p20).

“The fewer the people who know anything about your preps, the fewer the number of people who may show up with their hands out later” (p96).

Best Books: New Years

Oh how I do love thematic reading. Christmastime, love to read something Christmassy. Halloween. Valentines. Even Thanksgiving. In the spring I always think Anne of Green Gables, and in the fall, Harry Potter. I have been getting in the habit of yanking at least one book from my holiday lists as I arch ‘round the year, so I thought it would be nice to add a New Years’ list. As usual when I come up with a “Best Books” list, I mostly let other people determine it for me: this is what other people said was good reading when a new year begins. That means I have read very few of them (so far) and can not give recommendations. I tried to keep it to titles that would be good year after year and also a list that has real breadth to cover a multitude of resolutions and even meaningful fiction. It’s not a long list, but how many New Years’ do we get in a life, you know?

For a short book list for self help, see HERE. To start a book club for the year (even a couple book clubs based on new year thinking), go HERE.

Image from Amazon.comThe Alchemist, Paulo CoelhoDear Ijeawele, Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieTalking to Strangers¸ Malcolm GladwellThe Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read, Philippa PerryWe Are the Weather, Jonathan Safran FoerTiny Habits, BJ FoggGoodbye, Things, Fumio SasakiThinking Fast and Slow¸ Daniel KahnemanTen Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media, Jaron LarnierHow to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale CarnegieCandide, VoltaireSurvival of the Thickest¸ Michelle ButeauPlease Like Me and Nothing Like I Imagined, Mindy KalingThis is Big, Marissa MeltzerBecoming, Michelle ObamaMaybe You Should Talk to Someone, Lori GotleibSorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come, Jessica PanAtomic Habits, James ClearEverything is Figureoutable, Marie ForleoThe Friendship Formula, Caroline MillingtonHope in the Dark, Rebecca SolnitYear of Yes, Shonda RhimesYour Illustrated Guide to Becoming One with the Universe, Yumi SakugawaH is for Hawk, Helen MacDonaldAmazing Peace, Maya AngelouWake Up to the Joy of You, Agapi StassinopolousThe Wellness Mama Cookbook, Katie WellsBetter Than Before, Gretchen RubinOwn It, Sallie KrawcheckThe Perfect Blend, Tess MastersThe Prime, Kulreet ChaudharyThe 4-Hour Body, Timothy FerrissLiving with Intent, Malika ChopraClean Soups, Rebecca KatzThrive, Arianna HuffingtonThe Fast Metabolism Diet, Haylie PomroyRising Strong, Brene BrownTrim Healthy Mama Plan, Pearl BarrettEverything You Need You Have, Gerad KiteEverything I Never Told You, Celeste NgThe Achievement Habit¸ Bernard RothBig Magic, Elizabeth GilbertAfter You, Jojo MoyesLife and Other Near-Death Experiences, Camille PaganThe Japanese Lover, Isabel AllendeDear Mr. You, Mary Louise ParkerSpark Joy, Maria KondoThe Road to Little Dribbling¸ Bill Bryson

I’m going to do something I’ve never done before, and repeat some lists that I already used. I’ll make them look different. Expand on them. The thing is, before January, I posted some ideas for book clubs and personal reading goals this year, and in there I included some lists of journals and planners. These are great lists to have when you come up on a new year. So here they are, bigger and better:

JOURNALS

Image from Amazon.comDecomposition NotebooksLeuchtturn Bullet (or other) JournalDotted Grid NotebookMinimalism Art Classic Dotted NotebookSimple Elephant Organizing NotebookAmber and Rose Handmade Saari NotebookAnthropologie The Well JournalPaperage or Moleskin or Amazon Lined (or other) Journal NotebookRite in the Rain All-Weather Side-Spiral NotebookRiley Reflections Intentions Journal52 Lists for Calm JournalMaple Creek Gifts Personalized JournalThe List Journal (Owl and Zebra Press, yes, that’s me)The Feelings Journal (also Owl and Zebra Press)Tree of Life Writing JournalGood Days Gratitude JournalSifxxu Colour Blank NotebookBamboo BulletTumbiteri Meri A5 Bullet Dotted JournalHobonichi Techo Original BookMilligram Non-Diary DailyStalogy 018 Editors SeriesThe 5 Second JournalGet Your Sh*t Together Journal, Sarah Knight

PLANNERS

Image from JetPens.comKokuyo Jibun Techo DiaryLittle More Daily OrganizerMoleskin Classic 12 MonthLeuchtturn1917 Weekly PlannerMiGoals Goal DiggerOpen Sea Luminaries PlannerJSTORY Large Weekly PlannerTraveler’s Weekly Vertical PlannerFabriano Inspiro Weekly DiaryAppointed Year Task PlannerOctaevo Agenda A Year of SunWonderland222 Tomoe River Weekly PlannerRoterunner Purpose PlannerPonderlily Weekly PlannerLemome PlannerSmythson Soho Agenda or Wafer Agenda with PocketBrepols Back to Paper Diary NotebookClever Fox PlannerDay TimerAgendio Customizable PlannerGolden Coil’s Customizable PlannerPlum Paper Customizable PlannerPanda Planner Daily Planner or RocketbookBlue Sky Weekly and Monthly PlannerARTFAN Weekly and Monthly PlannerEmma Chamberlain The Ideal PlannerIntelligent Change Productivity PlannerRifle Paper Co. 17-Month PlannerLayers Daily Life Planner DuoDay Designer Daily PlannerBestself Self JournalBan.Do Classic Daily Planner

ALTERNATIVE JOURNALS/CREATIVITY REPOSITORIES

Image from Amazon.comThe Keri Smith Deluxe Boxed Set, Keri SmithFinish This Book, Keri SmithThe Imaginary World of ____, Keri SmithHow to be an Explorer of the World, Keri SmithThe Wander Society, Keri SmithLive Out Loud, Keri SmithI Wrote a Book About You, Clarke and EdgeQ&A A Day, Potter GiftComplete the Story, PiccadillyWrite the Story, PiccadillyThe Book of Me, Peter Pauper PressOne Line a Day, Chronicle BooksWhat I Wore Today, Gemma Correll642 Things to Draw, Po Bronson642 Things to Write About, Po Bronson The How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci Workbook, Michael L. GelbThe Artist’s Way Morning Pages Journal, Julia CameronStart Where You Are, Meera Lee PatelArt Before Breakfast, Danny GregoryGet Messy Art (online journaling community)Story by Story, Brenda HudsonAzure Dreams Journal, Peter Pauper Press1 Page at a Time, Adam J. KurtzI Am Here Now, The Mindfulness Project365, Noah ScalinThe Art of Getting Started, Lee CrutchleyLetters to My Future Self, Lea RedmondThe Scribble Diary, Lisa CurryStart Now!, Kate NeckelReady, Set, Novel, Baty and GrantThe Fashion Journal, Ohh DeerYear of the Doodle¸ Dawn Devries SokolThe Dream Journal, Knock KnockMap My Heart, Dominic EvansWrite Here, Write Now, LaRue and LessThe Steal Like an Artist Journal, Austin KleonHow to Be Happy, Lee CrutchleyNo Mistakes, Keiko AgenaThe Wild Unknown Journal, Kim Krans

I also had a desire to include the best books to get you started in a hobby, but that would have taken days of research, because there are so many hobbies and I’d have to boil each hobby down to just a couple books. I could do it, but it would take forever and would have holes. Here are some of my more-or-less-hobbies: painting, collaging, photography, embroidery, hiking, camping, roller skating, yoga, drawing, home design, fashion, cooking, baking, leisure cycling, movie-viewing, working out, blogging, eating out, singing, listening to music, not to mention science, history, and philosophy, among other special interests like astronomy, mycology, archaeology, marine biology, etc. And ones I would like to learn/re-learn: knitting, crocheting, making clothes, pottery, mosaic-making, flying (yes, a plane), piano, a stringed instrument, also etc. Suffice it to say we are in a time when you can find out what you want to know to join a community, learn about something new, and participate in any and all of these hobbies and the ones you are interested in, as well. Just look it up, do a little digging.

Book Review: Outlander

Well! There are gushing reviews of Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and there are scathing reviews of Outlander. No one expects it to be literary fiction—it’s popular fiction—though many claim it is great historical fiction (though it incorporates time travel), but the real discrepancy revolves around “rape culture.” I would say one out of ten, maybe twenty, readers get real put off by the way sex and violence were dealt with in Outlander. I am one of those people.

Yes, there are some things to recommend it. About an English woman from the 1940s, Claire Randall is on a post-war, second honeymoon with her husband in his ancestral Scotland when she is sucked into some magical stones and sent back to the 1700s. Following that is a lot of swashbuckling, intrigue and romance that zig zag all over the story before the last page. It’s an interesting story and the best part is the historical detail and really putting ourselves into that time as a twentieth-century English woman. Her time, her country of origin, her femaleness, not to mention her being a nurse and interested in botany, all really help paint a picture of the time which is at times favorable and at times not so favorable, though Claire is pretty judicious and, in the end, empathetic. Those same characteristics also get her in a heap of trouble, over and over and she becomes both the object of a lot of heroism and also a heroine herself. Gabaldon is not only a good researcher, she is a character writer, and it is the characters that often win the allegiance of fans here, especially Claire and her 1700s love interest, Jamie. (Yes, there is a love triangle. Actually, it’s more of a square. And from what I hear of the TV show, it becomes more of a web. Or a mess.) There are other characters, too, that Gabaldon helps us attach to, and ones that we very sincerely loathe. The details are compelling, too, for someone who enjoys history. (I do.) Other than that, the writing is adequate (I only had to re-read passages once in a while and there was sometimes spatial confusion, but) and the plot is pretty good, though I sorta wandered away in my mind when it came to clan issues, but that also had something to do with the pacing which I will address in the…

Cons. There are two rather large things that turn people off to this book (and to the series. Note: most reviewers do like this series, emphatically so). The first is length. The first book is 640 pages, and others later in the series approach 1000. Eight books in, you would have to read 7,500 pages to have kept up. The book I read simply did not need to be that long. The pacing runs really slow for long periods of time, and there are scenes and subplots that really could have just been cut. For this type of book, I should have been engrossed and not wanted to put it down, but it was sooooooo long, needlessly. And the other, even bigger, issue is the sex and violence/rape and love themes running through it from the beginning to a giant firework of it at the end. On one hand, you have Claire appalled and sickened by rape and merely exposing how prevalent rape was (and still is) in cultures where women lack power and a voice. On the other hand, she does do some bending of her ideas and even, a bit, encourages others to comingle sex and violence, even in the marriage bed. It is even implied at times that a true joining of souls and bodies can only be accomplished through painful sex. There was an attempted rape or a rape around every corner in this book. There were examples of corporal punishment being used on wives and on children (one time as abuse), and while we as the reader sit mostly in judgment against these and also wonder about cultural difference, Gabaldon goes on to make a real mess of it all, leaving us in emotional confusion between all the (traditional romance) titillation, love, and the sado-masochism. If that weren’t enough, she pulls religion, specifically Catholicism, into the mess at the end, and the climax of the story takes place in a two-punch of events. SPOILER ALERT, TO AN EXTENT *** In the first, Claire does witchcraft in a monastery and ends up drugging and raping her own husband in order to “heal” him from his brutal rape wounds. And it works! The second involves having sex in a public area of the aforementioned monastery. *** Yikes. In other words, I found some of the scenes and messaging of this book to be sickening and morally repugnant. I wanted to really like the main characters and believe in their flawed love, but yuck too.

So how could I even recommend it? Because everyone else is reading it? Because it is an interesting time-travel book with even more interesting historical details and likeable and hate-able characters? Yes, I guess if you can separate yourself from the rest of it, then that would be why. I do agree with many people who say that you can stop reading the series at the end of the first book. I’m sure there are many more adventures ahead for Claire and Jamie and Frank, but the first book does not leave you hanging any more than most books. If you can live without reading on, I see no reason to continue.

The series, begun in the 1990s and still continuing, is:

OutlanderDragonfly in AmberVoyagerDrums of AutumnThe Fiery CrossA Breath of Snow in and AshesAn Echo in the BoneWritten in My Own Heart’s BloodNext: Go Tell the Bees I Am ComingAnd one final book, so she says



Image from IMDB.com

TV SERIES

I started the Starz TV series (2014–) with my husband awhile ago, but was not really drawn into it. I think I will watch at least the first season, now, just because the book has made me want to put some faces and scenery and visual historical detail to it. I imagine there will be a lot of sex, but I am hoping they tone down the violence-and-sex link, at least in the relationships we are meant to respect. I know some of my family members have been enjoying it.

Media in Review: December 2020

BRIDGET JONES’ DIARY (2001)

Kicked off the Christmas season with my teen daughter’s first viewing of Bridget Jones’ Diary. It’s possible it’ll be her last, but maybe—while she’s still under my roof anyways—she’ll join me come Christmastime and I won’t have to watch “all by myself.” I believe she said it was “cute.” It is a little sexy, for my taste, as in there is a lot of casual sex involved in the characters’ lifestyles, which, among other things, provided a little awkward tension while viewing and doesn’t quite jive with my own life. On the other hand, it is a really straight-forward romantic comedy (based on a Jane Austen novel; funny/feisty young woman looking for a man but keeps falling for ones that are not so nice, then accidentally falls over right guy but must lose him a few times before the end) that has become famous—a cult classic of sorts with some surprising awards and a secure place in England’s pop culture— for the epistolary/New Years’ resolution telling and the general quality: it is standing the test of time. There are two sequels: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and Bridget Jones’ Baby. I believe that all three are based on books by Helen Fielding. (Review of the first one HERE.) I watched the second one years ago and was SO irritated that we had come back to the same tired love triangle, that I couldn’t enjoy it. And when I heard the third movie revisited the same love triangle (again!?) I just avoided it altogether. For what it’s worth, Bridget Jones was a movie I saw at a time in life when I was building my own traditions AND I’m an Anglophile, so it is a favorite holiday movie of mine—a romantic comedy I can snuggle up with under a pile of wrapping paper and fake mimosas, year after year.

CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES 1 and 2 (2018 and 2020)

Image from IMDB.com

Last year, The Christmas Chronicles (stupid name, yes) popped up on our Christmas movie radar; a new offering from Netflix that was getting some attention for its’ being decent. We watched it. Everyone in the family liked it okay enough to recommend it to the cousins. It really is an acceptable Christmas movie, full of secular-Christmas cliches and iconography, about a pre-teen girl and her teen sibling who are still suffering from the death of their father. Though one of them is dubious, they end up in Santa’s sleigh, which crash-lands so that the unlikely kid heroes must save Christmas before the sun rises. It involves Kurt Russell (and an appearance by his wife), a jazz number, some animated elves, and all the obvious things, including the ending. Everything is fine. There’s not much to deter you from watching it, but it won’t necessarily go on our nice list.

So we figured, this year why not watch the new sequel: The Christmas Chronicles 2. Because it’s a sequel, that’s why, and it falls prey to all the things that make sequels often terrible, except for the appearance of the original actors and the addition of Goldie Hawn. It’s an under-edited and poorly written piece of blech. Seriously, it was way too long and way too obvious and even lacked the charm of the first one, try though everyone is. It attempts to be funny, and it’s not. It attempts to be moving and falls flat. You can actually see the actors trying so hard to hoist this behemoth on their shoulders and hold it up, but it just plain doesn’t work. Sure, there’ll be kids who like it, just like some kids like Barney. But it’s not great entertainment, and I had a hard time finishing it.

THE GREAT CHRISTMAS BAKEOFF

Image from radiotimes.com

There are a handful of holiday specials orbiting in the Great British Bake-Off system, and one of them is The Great Christmas Bake Off. (Another, I just found out, is The Great New Year Bake Off.) Held for the last few years, 2020 was no exception. I have watched, in the past, all The Great British Baking Show: Holidays episodes, as well, which are from the old PBS days and feature Paul and Mary showing us how to make holiday bakes at home. The newer holiday episodes are just one-episode competitions reminiscent of the usual bake off, themed around the holidays and featuring recognizable faces from past seasons. If you like Great British Bake Off, you’ll probably like these, too, though you have less time to get invested in the bakers and also more time to want to keep watching. Forever one of my favorite food shows, and one of my top two favorite food competitions (with Iron Chef America), it’s always in good fun and meant to be a little funny as well as full of candy for us baking geeks. You’ll deplete the “series” pretty quickly, but it’s there for a seasonal GBBS fix.

CHRISTMAS COOKIE CHALLENGE (2017-)

Image from amazon.com

As much as I am not a Ree Drummond fan, I am constantly drawn back into her through her food and projects. Drummond is the head, recurring judge of Christmas Cookie Challenge, but thankfully is not the host; she leaves that to Eddie Jackson (at least for some of the seasons. Can’t remember. Did it begin as Jonathan Bennett?) On it’s fourth season in 2020, each episode is its own competition between five bakers who have to make impressive-tasting and -looking cookies to win. There is a structural challenge every time, and don’t be thinking it’ll be gingerbread houses because it’s bound to be more off-the-wall, like a box filled with presents or an advent calendar. It’s a cute, calm, little show, fine for the holiday season and especially for thinking about what you might want to bake for your friends (though we’re mainly talking roll-out cookies like sugar, shortbread, and gingerbread). When it’s not a pandemic. And you still have friends around. Maybe next year…

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)

I have seen this movie, probably once or twice over the years, but have never gravitated back to it on my own. I don’t know why not. The pacing, perhaps? It is a little slow and drawn out. But I love Jimmy Stewart on the screen and this is such an iconic and enduring story. Something reminiscent of A Christmas Carol but with an angel instead of the ghosts: small town, early twentieth-century hominess instead of Victorian spookiness. In a nutshell, George Bailey has had a nice, quiet life in a small town full of people who love him, but that’s not at all what he ever wanted. Every time he tries to take off for adventure, duty and circumstance hold him back, and since he can’t be cold-hearted, it’s his own fault that he’s stuck where everything (mostly finances) is now falling apart (thanks largely to the town patriarch and bully). It’s about a mid-life crises and about dreams that don’t pan out, but the first and final scenes take place against the backdrop of Christmas. There are some wonderful scenes in this old-fashioned gem, and I would definitely recommend it for at least a one-time viewing.

HOME ALONE (1990)

Technically, I already reviewed this movie , but it was pretty short. Plus, now that my son’s first viewing has made it into an annual tradition, I have a slightly different opinion of it. I love how it brings me back to the nineties, for one thing, from the clothes and hairdos and home decoration choices to the airports and religion and family life, etc. And as little Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) has grown further and further from my own age, I find him to be rather a cute, little nugget. I am less surprised by his antics and more endeared by his survival techniques. He’s a “funny kid,” as his dad says, and not funny ha-ha. Yes, the ending is predictable and the acting hokey and the comedic turns silly and unfeasible, but this one—soaked in Christmas-ness—is still a great family movie to watch together and has inspired booby-trap movies of the following decades, because how childlike and cool is that?

NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION (1989)

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I can’t believe I’ve never reviewed this movie. It is, with Elf, my favorite Christmas movie and perhaps the movie I have seen most in my life. (I believe I’ve seen it every December since I was a child). Now, speaking of the child in the 80s thing, I can’t believe this was thought okay for kids in the 80s, though I have had it postured to me that perhaps, in its TV versions, some of the stuff was cut out. I dunno. Different times. I mean, it is really tame for National Lampoon, actually, but there are scenes that I still skip for my teens, to this day. Just some sexy stuff. And there is definitely some swearing. I also wonder how this movie would seem to someone who didn’t grow up with it. Probably they would think it was funny and entertaining. Those of us who did grow up with it find it funny and entertaining and nostalgic and unifying and perhaps a little soothing. We can recite all the important lines with the characters. My husband and I were Todd and Margo two Halloweens ago, and there are any number of characters or situations in this movie that are part of our culture and our shared discourse. In other words, it’s a classic. Maybe the most classic of the modern Christmas movies. It is funny, and even touching amidst its slight irreverence. And the situations just never get old.

LOVE, ACTUALLY (2003)

I find this an unlikely candidate for the Christmas pantheon, but in the years following its release it endured and is now one of the most-watched Christmas movies. Taking place during the holiday season, this British blockbuster weaves together ten different plot lines with characters that connect (sometimes barely). The idea is to present love in its many forms, from familial relationships to affairs, from marriage to blooming love, from office crushes to business partners, from children to old men. Also to celebrate love. Some of the plotlines are better than others, though the way they jump in and out through the film is part of what makes it nice. And some of the plotlines even come with their own distinct genre: drama, comedy, romance, family, etc. Not a family movie, it is one that will continue to endure because it is entertaining, engaging, and at times, shockingly well-acted. (Emma Thompson’s scene during the Joni Mitchell song is, though subtle, arguably the best bit of acting I’ve ever seen.) It’s also filled with top-billed names, and though it is a bit of fun when Hollywood or elsewhere releases one of these “ensemble cast” movies every once in a while, this one is better than almost all of them. I mean, you’ve got Snape and The Hobbit and Darcy and Schindler… the list goes on and on, and it is well-acted, well-written, well-directed, and well-edited. Despite some plotlines being a bit too sexy for my taste (though one of them is contrastingly chaste: you’ll have to watch it to see what I mean), this is one for young to middle aged women to watch year after year after year.

JINGLE JANGLE (2020)

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Depending on who you are, you looked at that title and thought about representation and children, or teens and drugs. Perhaps an unfortunate name for a brand-new, Christmas-released children’s movie, jingle jangle also refers to a drug (perhaps related to heroin) on the popular show, Riverdale. So, yeah, awkward. Nevertheless, I was ignorant until I rented the movie and sat down to watch it with the whole family and my daughter said, “What?!.” We were skeptical about it being more than a kid’s movie, and in many ways we were right: this is definitely geared toward kids and doesn’t have too many grown-up tie-ins (besides the obvious and not especially poignant.) Jingle Jangle does have a few things going for it, though. First, it is one of a bevy of recent releases under the “representation matters” wave, and this one not only draws from Black actors to act in it, but also incorporates a distinctly Black personality and ethos, mashed together with some sort of Victorian-era steam punk. The music. The characters. The interactions. The look. They are especially reminiscent of both African and African American culture, but set in a fantastical place and time. Second, people break into song and dance, so it’s a musical. For me, it wasn’t quite musical enough, but I did really enjoy this about it. And third, the CG is so realistic, that amidst the “real-skin” actors and scenery, it’s hard to believe it is CG at all. While I liked Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium more than this somewhat lackluster tap-dance, it’s a good family movie for movie night, guaranteed. Oh, and I forgot four, the costumes. I wouldn’t be surprised at an Oscar nod for costumes. I totally want to wear what they’re wearing, and indeed, have seen sweaters a la the main character popping up on clothing racks, left and right.

THE FAMILY STONE (2005)

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This movie made multiple appearances on lists when I was looking for the best Christmas movies for a blog list. It sounds good, trips over the tongue, so to speak. But when it started, I had this strange feeling of deja vu which only deepened as I continued. That never strikes me as a good sign, since it probably means I have seen the movie but didn’t bother to mentally file away anything about it. Still, I watched on for the review and also because I was curious about why it made absolutely no impression: it didn’t seem to be a bad movie, so far. With what I found to be an interesting combination of actors (popular at different times and for vastly different things), The Family Stone (yes, it’s both an object and a name) tackles a quintessential holiday movie topic: family; love or dysfunction? I guess I enjoyed it, but it was hard for me to see why it would make the best holiday movies list. There are things that might grow on you, but over all, it felt blah, mostly because of the writing. And the speed at which the boyfriend-swapping happens. Totally weird and unfulfilling. I also think that everyone plays their parts too well, so that you can’t find it in your heart to love them: they end up being caricatures. Ehn, okay. Not my favorite and I can see why I found in forgettable.

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER (1939)

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I can’t believe this TV special has been airing since the 30s, but it has. One of the annual specials that we used to wait anxiously for every Christmas and then hunker down in the family room to watch as a family, I can not completely separate myself from the nostalgic experience of it. I mean, if you just happened upon this today and watched it, you would find some good in it, but you’d also probably find it strange. And there’s a whole lot of story to tell in less than a half-hour, so it moves whip-lash quick. I can’t help but think that it was subversively addressing being gay waaaaaay before that was the cool thing to do, as well. But I could be wrong. Anyhow, you have a couple of misfits, some daddy issues, and forbidden love, and it’s all framed in a monster-out-to-get-them and save-Christmas double-whammy, along with a few quick tunes and stop-motion animation effects that are, obviously, laughable today. Still, I watch it and will continue to do so.

A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983)

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This movie is so authentic to the time of its story (the 60s), that I often forget it was made in the 80s. But it makes sense, because the narrator is a grown man telling the story of a memorable Christmas holiday—memorable, but typical. Another movie that many of us grew up with, it has also worked its way into our Christmas consciousness, with leg lamps and “fra-jee-lay” and pink, bunny pajamas and the Bumpuses’ dogs, etc. It does really make me feel like I have time travelled, somehow; the illusion is pretty complete. The story is interesting enough: a maybe-ten-year-old boy wants a BB gun for Christmas, but his fretting mother says he’ll shoot his eye out, a sentiment every adult seems to share. The set-up is a series of seasonal incidences from dealing with a bully, daring someone to stick their tongue to frozen metal, visiting Santa, Christmas shopping, opening presents, getting a tree, and Christmas dinner, etc. Not to mention Dad winning a “special prize” for his religiously filling out the crossword puzzle and the 1960s consequences of a little boy saying a bad word… the bad word. A fascinating look into life in America at a different time. (I do have some issue with the final scenes, which take place in a Chinese restaurant. While probably pretty accurate, the mom just can’t stop laughing at the Chinese men’s inability to make the “l” sound and also the serving of duck with its head on. In other words, she’s being culturally insensitive and we’re supposed to laugh along with her, also being culturally insensitive.)

SOUL (2020)

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Hm, hm, hm. I was really glad when Pixar decided to release this straight to the Disney streaming platform so we could enjoy the next, big, animated adventure. Compared to Inside Out before it was even released, the comparison is an apt one: they both deal metaphorically with deeper things than the typical family movie. In the case of Inside Out, it was emotions. In Soul, it’s, as the name suggests, the meaning of life. But the metaphors are less obvious, since our characters either are from or visit what is essentially purgatory and life-before-birth places. (We know that there are no actual, little people in our heads, driving us. It is less obvious that there isn’t a conveyor belt between death and the beyond.) In fact, I know quite a few people who won’t let their kids watch Soul, because it kind of infringes on religious territory, and who wants Pixar to teach their kids religion? My kids are teens, so they’re not confused about what they have been taught about the nature of the afterlife, and I don’t think Soul means to teach theology, exactly. The ideas are playful, and they are meant to teach something else: that the meaning of life is not what you do, but the relationships you have and just living, in the moment. Having gratitude. Slowing down. It’s a lesson that I can endorse, again, if you don’t think your kids will be confused by the messaging. If they (or you) won’t, it’s a movie I hope you watch, but not one I’ll be putting on my favorites list. You might be rioting right now: it seems unsafe not to love this movie at this time. The reviews are shining. For one thing, it is another “representation matters” movie, though maybe not officially, as the main character is a middle-aged Black man. He is a lovable guy, and the story is cute and, at times, a little surprising. Also, the music, mostly jazz (a double entendre for the title), is really nice. Perhaps this is part of my problem. Though Joe’s love of music is infectious, I still don’t really like, or even relate to, jazz, so something was lost on me. But I found myself enjoying it at a once-is-enough level. I endorse it, with above caveat, but it’ll be going the way of Onward and Coco for me: just happy memories.

WONDER WOMAN 1984/WW84 (2020)

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So, I always vote against comic book/superhero movies and I am usually out-voted. Honestly, I can count the comic book/superhero movies I’ve loved on one hand (Into the Spider-Verse, the Tim Burton Batman movies, Dark Knight, Spiderman: Homecoming, and maybe Captain Marvel and Guardians of the Galaxy. (The maybes don’t count as fingers.) Doctor Strange and Shazzam! look interesting, but I haven’t seen them. I do want to see Glass. If you count it, I also like The LEGO Movie and sequel and I’m not counting movies like Ghost World and Scott Pilgrim.) I must have seen hundreds. So, as much as I felt all empowered and amped up after watching Wonder Woman (2017), I was less pleased with the continuation of the series, WW84. Now, don’t get confused. This movie was made, not in 1984, but in 2020. It takes place in 1984, after Diana’s love has died and she’s been forced to continue her nearly-immortal life for some twenty years, stateside, without him. They contrive to give him an appearance, anyhow, along with the highly unlikely Kristen Wiig. Not sure anyone pulls much off in this movie, though, because the writing is crap and I don’t know as anyone cares. It’s got special effects galore and ties into the whole world of the comic book movies. The best thing? The outfits were fabulously 1980s. That’s about it for me.

MULAN (2020)

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I have been waiting to watch this one, since it came out in the middle of the ongoing pandemic, this past summer. I like the animated Disney movie (1998) and thought that this live-action mash-up with wire-fu would be awesome. I am a fan of wire-fu. I did miss the songs. And I also think we’ve got it, Disney!!!: women don’t need men to be happy or successful. But to take away Mulan’s romantic ending was, for me, quite disappointing. And let’s be real: in that time and place, she would have needed it, even after she saved the country and managed to not get executed. Yeah, this one fell a little flat, despite my initial enthusiasm. There were the usual wire-fu things: sweeping landscapes, saturated cinematography, eye-catching, magical, kung-fu moments, and a girl kicking some butt. Also, honor and family and nationalism. I think, though, we somehow see through this portrayal of Mulan. She’s still my fictional hero, but I wanted just a little bit more; something cleaner and sharper, more brilliant and breath-taking and more over-the-top. I would recommend it, but maybe don’t expect too much and you’ll enjoy it more.