Category: books

The fickle finger of fluidity

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 23 Comments

I tried to do the ten most influential books meme, I really tried. But I could only find five books on my shelf I counted as “influential enough”, and even a few of those seemed to be pushing it. If I lowered my criteria, all of sudden there were dozens and dozens of books that were equally influential, but none were really that “influential”. I just liked them enough to keep them for 20-30 years.

And I couldn’t help but feel like there were some really, important, influential books from my childhood that I just couldn’t remember. I couldn’t do that meme if I was leaving out really important books that had just slipped into subconciousness over the years. This feeling was quickly substantiated when I read other’s memes and remembered some of the books I’d forgotten. My memory is a sieve; I should be forbidden from doing these memes.

So I gave up. At first, I thought there was something wrong with me that I couldn’t do this meme. But after reading the reactions of oursin, redredshoes, and matociquala I realized it ain’t just me.

I’m just not the type that can make lists of “favorite” things or “influential” things. My mind doesn’t organize the world in terms of those kind of value judgments. It’s too fluid. My favorite things change every day, my influential things, every year. And at the same time, I am a creature of habit, hanging on to the same sorts of preferences year after year. But that doesn’t mean I would consider those things “favorites”. I’m just used to them and too busy or lazy to seek out alternatives. I do encounter new things all the time, of course, in the random bumblings of daily life. I make new discoveries all the time, and find new things to delight in.

Speaking of TV shows that died young…

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 9 Comments

This weekend I rented the first DVD of “Kindred: The Embraced“. I remember watching this show way back when and not caring for it much. I’m not sure what’s different now. Maybe my tastes are different. Maybe I see how this is not really a mobster show in vampire disguise like I thought last time, but a sociological study of what a vampire sub-culture might be like. Maybe it’s because I live in San Francisco now. Maybe it’s because I get to watch all the eps in a row and get more story before making up my mind. Maybe it’s because I have a better grasp of the vampire metaphysics of this particular universe this time around.

But I like this show. It’s pretty cool. And there are only eight episodes!!! (*sob*)

I noticed in the credits, though, that this was based on and produced by a guy who wrote for the “Vampire: the Masquerade” thingee. Was that ever in novelized form? I always thought it was just an RPG, and looking it up on amazon.com didn’t clear it up. Are they novels, or just rule books? ‘Cause I’d like a little more story, but I don’t want to spend my money on RPG rule books.

— Masquerade, who did NOT adopt her name because of this RPG.

Turgid supernatural soap opera

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 7 Comments

I know I should read Proust and James Joyce and Virginia Woolf and all those people, but I don’t. I haven’t read “literature” since I nodded off in American Short Story in the 10th grade. But I know I should read that stuff because I absorb what I read and it is reflected in how I write.

But *alas*, I read for entertainment. To relax, to pass the time. Anything that I perceive remotely as, “this reading is GOOD for me, it will enhance me as a writer and/or person”, I won’t touch. It’s *work*, and all the pleasure dribbles out of it.

The preceding was my long neurotic apologetic preface to my review of the Tanya Huff Blood series, which falls somewhere in that nether region between fantasy and horror where BtVS and Angel ambiguously reside. And in fact, it was the resemblance of this series, in spirit, if not in level of writing quality, to BtVS/Angel that kept me reading through five books.

Specifically, this series has (1) richly drawn protagonist characters, (2) a hidden world of the “supernatural” existing within our world that our protagonists must enter and investigate and participate in to varying degrees, (3) a writing style that is humorous and a bit irreverent and yet at the same time takes its subject matter seriously, (4) and butofcourse, soap opera. Angst and passion and relationships.

Turgid

A Harry Potter question

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ Leave a comment

current book: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Since I started reading the HP books, I’ve told friends about them, suggesting that they read them. And quite a few of them have said to me, “Oh yeah, I read a little of that, but I couldn’t get into it. I would have loved it when I was ten, though!”

This puzzles me. Am I so weird to like Harry Potter when I’m pushing 40? These are books about a group of kids in school, granted, but the books have a lot of adult subject matter–murders, emotional depths, moral quandaries, adult characters ensconced in rivalries, politics, and ambition.

This is not Walt Disney cartoon stuff. Or am I wrong? It’s been a long time since I watched any Disney cartoons. Maybe I’m reliving my childhood through the books, but it doesn’t feel that way. And I seriously doubt a ten-year old would get half of what is going on in these books, much less make it through the two-inch “Goblet of Fire”. The Harry Potter world is complex, both in its metaphysics and in the plot; even I have to go back and reread things a few times before I get what’s going on, if I do.

The books remind me a lot of BtVS and what I found appealing in that show–which is a show that drew in adults by the hoard, including some of the people who “never got into” HP because it’s too “juvenile”. And more than a few adults got that same reaction about watching BtVS: “Oh, I don’t like shows about teenagers.”

Just another one of life’s trivial puzzles I’m trying to sort through.

Deep thoughts on “Prisoner of Azkaban” coming soon.

The Metaphysics of Harry Potter

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 12 Comments

OK, I’m half way through “Chamber of Secrets” and, yes, I’ll admit it: I am now a fan.

But is this a surprise? Not to me. The books are better than the movies, charming and entertaining and almost a perfect fit for the kind of fiction I look for: sci-fi or fantasy that takes place in our world, but reveals a secret segment of our world no ordinary person knows about (BtVS/Angel and Highlander are both like this). And it’s a series, so that when I get that “so what happened next?” bug I can just pick up the next book. Or wait for the next book. And of course, I like books with complicated teen-aged protagonists/heroes. Don’t ask me why. Connor Angel, John Connor, Luke Skywalker, Buffy Summers, Richie Ryan, Harry Potter.

Rowling has created a rich complex sub-culture/universe that, only half-way into the second book, rivals a full 11 seasons of BtVS and Angel. To crawl around in this woman’s mind! I knew I was merrily in fandom land when I found myself looking for Harry Potter websites that resembled the Metaphysics section of my own ATPoBtVS. If I hadn’t come across a clever and decent little reference site on my first search, I would have had to wrestle my inner metaphysician to the ground to keep her from starting a new website, All Things Philosophical in… well, you know.

I came to Harry Potter through the movies, so that might make me sympathetic to the movies, but I actually find it fascinating to compare the books and the movies. I’m the sort of person who enjoys the writer’s and director’s commentaries on movie and television show DVDs almost more than the original piece. It’s interesting to see where the movie-makers cut corners, what they decide to chop out, what they decide to keep, and where they decide to make events go completely differently than the books in order to save time and resources.

But this is why the written word will never be replaced by film. The written word can go more places, and people are willing to give it more time than they’ll sit through a film.

Rowling has given a fresh face to classic fantasy themes: the unwanted child, discovering a magical new world right under your nose, good versus evil, the mundane/poor/outsider kids vs. the popular/rich/insider kids, secret passageways, mystical animals, bubbling potions, spells, rituals, monsters, super powers, and the panged, panged pains of childhood/adolescence.

Now I will just have to find a way to deal with the fact that I like something that is immensely…. dare I use the word? Ugh!

Popular.

shudders Instead of people staring oddly at the front cover of the book I am reading on the bus, they smile nostalgically. I am not used to this. I’m so used to doing what comes naturally to me and finding myself the odd girl out.