Category: Ruminations

Questing with the Once Upon a Time Challenge

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations2 Comments

If you’re a regular visitor, you probably know a couple of facts about my reading: I love fairy tales retold; and I’ve signed on for a number of reading challenges this year.

With those facts together, it seems a natural that I would jump on the Once Upon a Time reading challenge being hosted right now by Stainless Steel Droppings.  And I was intrigued when I first heard about this a month or so ago.  But I hesitated.  I had just gone on a rampage of fairy tale retellings in the previous month, and I felt I needed to explore some other books for a while.  And since this particular challenge only runs for about three months, I didn’t feel ready to commit when I wasn’t sure when I’d want to come back to the land of fairy tales.

Well…I’m feeling the fairy tale vibe again.  So I’ve decided to get on board with the challenge too!

Since the timing is different for this one, I’m going to keep it as a separate post from my others.  Also, it’s more complicated!

The Once Upon a Time Challenge has a variety of quests, and now that I decided I’m in, I decided to jump for several of them:

Quest the First: Read five books that are fantasy, fable, fairy tale or mythology.  Half of what I read is fantasy, so it would be silly not to join up for this one!

Quest the Second: Read four books, one from each category.

Quest the Third: Quest one or two, plus reading or watching A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream in June.  Love Shakespeare–so in for this.

Quest on Film: Watch any movies or TV that also tell stories fitting the categories.

The challenge runs from March 21st to June 20th, throughout spring.  I’ll let you know how it goes!

Jesus as a Rock Star

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations6 Comments

I got myself into a spiritual theme this week, but I don’t really have anything that fits for Fiction Friday.  So instead of sharing some writing today, I’m going to talk about a Good Friday tradition of mine–while keeping on the story theme of this blog.  🙂

I’m sure there are endless retellings of the Passion of Christ.  It has, after all, been described as “the greatest story ever told.”  A particular favorite version of mine is Jesus Christ Superstar, the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber.  I’ve listened to the soundtrack every Good Friday for the last several years, and last year I finally bought the DVD.  So I’ll be watching that tonight–after the Good Friday service at my church.

For those not familiar with Jesus Christ Superstar, it’s essentially the last week of Jesus’ life: the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the betrayal by Judas, the Last Supper, the trial, the crucifixion.  Except it’s a rock opera and, at least in the 2004 DVD, it’s set more or less in the modern day.  The Roman soldiers have guns, and there’s a sort of industrial feel to the minimal sets.  I think bringing it (more or less) into the modern day makes some parts more accessible, or at least gives a new perspective on them.  Jesus as rock star.  It’s pretty cool. 

I think you already knew I love the Webber Phantom, and I love the music in JCS too.  Few melodies get stuck in my head like Webber’s.  There are powerful songs throughout the musical–Judas has some good ones, although my favorite may be “Gethsemane.”  I have a version of Michael Crawford singing that one, and after a really frustrating day, few things are more satisfying than “Gethsemane” at high volume (and Crawford holds a note in the middle for 16 seconds, which is really long if you’re trying to sing along).

This is also a good version of the story.  Not all of it is Biblical–nowhere in the Bible does Jesus tell the crowds to heal themselves, although he does keep trying to get off by himself for a while when they press around too much.  But a lot of it is very close to the Bible, enough that you can see Webber and Rice had the book open when they were writing the musical.  The confrontation between Jesus and Pilate is especially close to the Biblical version:

Pilate: Listen, King of the Jews, where is your kingdom?  Look at me, am I Jew?

Jesus: I have got no kingdom in this world, I’m through–through–through.
There may be a kingdom for me somewhere if I only knew.

Pilate: You are a King?

Jesus: It’s you that say I am.  I look for truth, and find that I get damned.

Pilate: But what is truth?  Is truth a changing law?  We both have truths–are mine the same as yours?

That’s pretty much straight out of Chapter 18 of John’s Gospel.  And where Webber takes more artistic license, I mostly like where he goes.  The story is, largely, from Judas’ point of view, and I find the more sympathetic portrayal of Judas to be fascinating.  I think the musical still leaves some debate as to why Judas betrayed Jesus.  Did he see the prophecy and knew someone had to carry it out?  (“You used me–and you knew–all the time!”)  Was he afraid of the Romans? (“I am frightened of the crowds–we are getting much too loud.  And they’ll crush us if we go too far.”)  And of course we can’t really know.  But this explores some interesting ideas.

The one part I don’t like is the portrayal of Peter.  The first time I encountered the musical, watching the movie in a religion class, it struck me that Jesus seemed so alone, surrounded by people who didn’t understand.  And I kept thinking, where’s Peter?  Peter’s my favorite of the apostles, because he usually says the wrong thing, but nearly always has his heart in the right place.  That “nearly” comes in because of the famous three denials, which is practically the only part of Jesus Christ Superstar when Peter is identifiable.  Nice job, shine a spotlight on the man’s worst moment and pay no attention to the rest.

But other than that, it’s a good retelling.   The musical walks a nice line with the miracles too.  It’s not overt, so you can take it any way you want.  The most miraculous moment is when Jesus predicts Peter’s denials–and you could interpret that by saying he just knows Peter well. 

If Webber was willing to go more miraculous, it seems to me that, if he really wanted to go back and write a sequel to a successful past musical, he should have come back to Jesus Christ Superstar (instead of writing that debacle of a sequel to Phantom).  I’d love to see a musical about the Resurrection.  The resurrection accounts in John are amazing stories too (especially at the Sea of Gallilee, when Peter–heart in the right place!–goes jumping overboard to swim ashore because he sees Jesus on the beach).

Oh well.  Until I get a musical for Easter, I’ll just go on watching Jesus Christ Superstar on Good Friday.

2011 Reading Challenges – Update

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations6 Comments

It’s just past the end of March–we’re about a quarter of the way into 2011, and it seems like a good time to update on my reading challenges.  Any links will take you to my review of the book.  Some of these may get reviews later on, I just haven’t got to them yet!

I decided not to count rereads, except for the library challenge; I’ve still listed relevant rereads, because I thought people might be interested (especially for the fairy tales retold and the classics), but they’re denoted with an R rather than a number in the list.

Here’s what I’ve read so far:

Hosted by A Few More Pages.  Goal: “Series Expert,” read 12 books that are first in a series.  I don’t know exactly what defines a series, but I’ve decided a minimum of three books.

R) Sarah’s Story by Ruth Elwin Harris

R) The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (first by one numbering theory!)

1) Foundation by Isaac Asimov

2) The Children of Green Knowe by L. M. Boston

3) The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

4) The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig (really it’s a review of a later book in the series, but I mention this one too)

5) The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

 

StilettoStorytime

Hosted by Stiletto Storytime.  Goal: read fifteen “classic” books (and I have it direct from the organizer that sci fi and children’s count!)

R) The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

1) Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

2) Foundation by Isaac Asimov

3) Trilby by George du Maurier

4) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

5) The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

 

Photobucket

Hosted by Among the Muses.  Goal: Enchanted level, read 6-9 books that are inspired in some way by fairy tales.

R) Spindle’s End by Robin McKinley (Sleeping Beauty)

R) Beauty by Robin McKinley (Beauty and the Beast)

1) Ice by Sarah Beth Durst (Cupid and Psyche / East of the Sun)

2) The Rose Bride by Nancy Holder (The White Bride and the Black Bride–it’s in Grimm)

3) Castle Waiting by Linda Medley (Sleeping Beauty)

R) The Rumpelstiltskin Problem by Vivian Vande Velde (Rumpelstiltskin)

4) Cloaked in Red by Vivian Vande Velde (Little Red Riding Hood)

5) Straw into Gold by Gary D. Schmidt (Rumpelstiltskin)

 

Hosted by Home Girl’s Book Blog. Goal: read 100 books from the library.

1) Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier

2) Palace of Mirrors by Margaret Peterson Haddix

3) Spindle’s End by Robin McKinley

4) Looking for Marco Polo by Alan Armstrong

5) Stolen by Vivian Vande Velde

6) Enter Three Witches by Caroline B. Cooney

7) The Blue Shoe by Roderick Townley

8 ) Skating Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

9) Beauty by Robin McKinley

10) The Twisted Window by Lois Duncan

11) Ice by Sarah Beth Durst

12) Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits by Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson

13) Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

14) Golden and Grey: A Good Day for Haunting by Louise Arnold

15) The Rose Bride by Nancy Holder

16) Castle Waiting by Linda Medley

17) The Rumpelstiltskin Problem by Vivian Vande Velde

18) The Umbrella Man and other stories by Roald Dahl

19) Familiar and Haunting by Philippa Pearce

20) The Mischief of the Mistletoe by Lauren Willig

21) The Girl with the Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts

22) The Children of Green Knowe by L. M. Boston

23) The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie

24) Cloaked in Red by Vivian Vande Velde

25) Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones

26) Little Sister by Kara Dalkey

27) The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

28) Straw into Gold by Gary D. Schmidt

29) The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig

30) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

31) The Heavenward Path by Kara Dalkey

Obviously I’ve been focusing a bit on the Fairy Tales Retold… 

The library one, I must admit, I viewed as almost a non-challenge, since my regular pattern of reading is to go to the library.  This could be more difficult than I thought though, going forward.  I’m fine on numbers right now, but I have somehow managed to pick up a good dozen never-read-before books in the last month or so.  I don’t know how it happened, I never buy unread books!  But I had the chance to buy some super cheap classics, and then my book club had a book swap (free books!) and now I have a whole stack of non-library books to read…so we’ll see how that turns out going farther into the year.

The First in a Series Challenge was worrying me a bit through February, which may be why I jumped farther ahead with it in March, adding 3, 4 and 5 in the last couple of weeks.  I had felt like I wasn’t getting to the point of the challenge yet, to find new series (what’s the plural?  Serieses?) to read.  But I want to read the books that follow The Wee Free Men, and I’m completely mad about The Pink Carnation series.  I’ll probably read the rest of the Foundation series too, although I originally read that one thinking more about the Classics challenge.  And I didn’t realize The Eyre Affair was part of a series until I got to the end and found the part about the author’s other books.  Undecided yet whether I’ll pick any up.

The Classics challenge is the one I think will require the most concentration–in picking up the books, I mean, not necessarily in reading them (thought that could be true too).  I find Dickens more intimidating than, say, Robin McKinley.  I’ve been on good momentum for the classics in the last month, but I don’t know how long that will last…

So far I’m really enjoying all the challenges.  It gives me a nice feeling of accomplishment when I finish a book that can go on a list.  It’s also giving me incentive to seek out certain kinds of books…and since I love retold fairy tales and have been wanting to read more classics, it’s made for good reading!

Netflix vs. Cable, or eBooks vs. Paper

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations6 Comments

I’ve been thinking about my television viewing.  I moved into a new apartment six months ago, and I chose not to set up cable.  There was only one currently-running show I actually cared about watching, and it didn’t seem worth the cable company’s monthly fee for a single show (which I can get on DVD by next summer anyway).

So I got Netflix instead.  When I say I don’t have cable (or even broadcast, thanks to the digital switch), that doesn’t mean I don’t watch television–I average about an hour a day, sometimes more on weekends.  But it’s mostly Netflix, sometimes something borrowed from a friend (or the, at present, two shows I really like that are currently on and which my dad puts on VHS tapes for me!)

I’ve found it feels incredibly freeing to not have cable.  No temptation to just mindlessly put the TV on.  And I’m convinced the quality of what I watch has gone up.  (And Netflix is not paying me to say this!)  It’s a difference between seeking and browsing.  With Netflix, I seek out shows and movies I really want to see.  I browse their suggestions, but usually to save things to my queue and watch later, when I decide to seek them out.  If I had cable, not Netflix, I think I’d do much more browsing through whatever was on.  And since I like to refer to television as a vast wasteland, I think I’d often end up with very mediocre shows.  A thousand channels…and nothing on.

In all of this, I see an analogy to ebooks and paper books–or more specifically, “brick and mortar” bookstores and libraries.  It’s easy to browse through stretches of physical bookshelves.  With ebooks, or online booksellers like Amazon, you have to know what you’re seeking.  There’s some browsing ability, but not to the same extent.

I’m a seeker for television, but a browser for books.  Most of what I read I find by wandering through my library’s shelves.  I’m not sure why there’s this divide in how I handle entertainment, though maybe it has to do with the quality of what I find in my browsing.  I have browsed television some in the past–I can only think of two shows I started following that I just stumbled on, and even those are probably not in my top ten of favorite TV shows.  But I’ve found many favorite books and authors by happening across them on the shelves: Juliet Marillier, Patricia C. Wrede, Gordon Korman, Helen Cresswell, Lois Duncan, even Tamora Pierce (actually, my mom browsed and found her for me, but same principle).  I just happened to pick up The White Darkness, Silver Woven in My Hair and The Squire’s Tale.

My favorite story about browsing: I’ve mentioned my character, Sam Jones.  One day I was at the library, wanting to find a new author, and on a whim decided to see if any authors named Jones looked good.  And that’s how I started reading Diana Wynne Jones.  I’ve read over twenty of her books, and she’s really top quality fantasy.

Anyway, the point: browsing books seems to work for me.  But I’ve also never really tried being a serious seeker of books.  So I’ve decided to experiment in that area: go for a month, only reading books that I specifically seek out.  Now is a good time for it, since I have a long To-Be-Read list of books I’ve seen recommended on other blogs, plus I just brought home a stack of unread books from a book swap my Book Club did.

I’m curious to see if the quality of what I read goes up if I start seeking instead of browsing.  It worked for television.  I have more doubts that it will work for books.  But…I’ll see!  And I’ll let you know.

But even if I decide I like seeking, I do hope ebooks don’t mean an end to browsing as we know it.  Because where would I be without all those books I just happened to bump into at the library?

How do you find books?  Are you a browser or a seeker?  Have you ever switched from one to the other?

Who Do Your Characters Know?

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations2 Comments

Have you ever noticed that an unnatural number of characters seem to be loners?  Or close to it?  It’s the standard formula–you give your main character one friend so that they won’t be totally antisocial and will have someone to bounce conversation off of, and then you ignore the rest of their social life while you pursue the plot.

But lately that second part has been bothering me.  I recently read Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, and his main character, Richard, though a basically nice guy with a good job in a populous city, seems to have absolutely no one in his life except a coworker he’s friendly with, and a really terrifying girlfriend.  In some ways the trajectory of the book explains why Gaiman wouldn’t want to tie Richard down (I’ll leave it vague to avoid spoilers), but it put me on the thought track, and I don’t think Richard is the only character in this social situation.

 Why don’t these characters have more friends?  Why don’t they have second cousins and old college acquaintances and coworkers they’re friendly with and members of groups they attend and old friends of the family and neighbors they nod to and that best friend they bounce coversation off of?  At least, that’s the way the world works for me and the people I know.  So why don’t characters exist at the center of their own web of people?

Probably because it doesn’t make sense to clutter up a story with all those people who aren’t relevant to the plot.  But shouldn’t they exist in a subtext sort of way?  You never meet Aunt Susie and Cousin Jimmy, but the character has family photos on the wall.  We don’t need to know who’s in them, but family photos means family and it would be nice to know they exist somewhere.  Yet lately I keep running across books (and even more so in movies) where characters seem to know barely anyone.  Some characters, of course, really are loners and that’s part of the point.  But a lot just seem to be sort of vaguely unconnected.

It’s made me think about my own writing.  How many people do my characters know?  Take Jack, my goatherd.  He’s new to the area, having moved from the next country over, but he’s friendly with the servants at the castle, and he ought to know a few other shepherds and goatherds in the area–but I must admit I’m not sure I’ve made that second part clear.  He also has relatives back in his hometown, an uncle and a cousin.  His cousin, Catherine, becomes the heroine of the second part of the book.  She runs an inn and I’m pretty sure she knows most people in town.  She has a whole network of people running the inn with her, she goes to the prince’s ball with a group of friends, and when Cinderella is eventually found, Catherine knows her slightly and has heard gossip about her (unpleasant family situation).

I’m not claiming I have it down perfectly with all my characters either–far from it, I’m sure!  But it’s something I want to think about more consciously when I write characters.  Do they know a lot of people, and what kind of people?  And if they don’t–because I think the main characters of the story I’m writing now wouldn’t–why not?  And how does that change the character?

My pirate captain, Red Ballantyne, knows everyone.  Every bartender, every tavern girl, every pirate, every person he trades goods with illegally, he knows by name.  He’s also not very close to any of them.

The main character of my current in-progress novel, another fantasy loosely drawing on fairy tales, is a wandering adventurer named Jasper.  He meets new people constantly, by doing things like rescuing them from ogres.  But I think if he bumped into them six months later, he wouldn’t remember them very well.  And I don’t think he keeps in touch with hardly anyone.  But that’s who Jasper is as a character, and I eventually get into a backstory about why he doesn’t form lasting friendships with the people he meets.

Any case, it seems to me that who your characters know is a pretty good way to convey information about them.  Has anyone else seen authors who do this really well?  Or, like me, do you find that it seems to be an under-utilized tool?