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5 More Questions About Books
You guys may remember the previous meme post I did 5 Questions About Books, which I acquired from Syosset Public Library’s Readers and Reference blog. Well, the lovely Sonia of the library, contacted me with the complete list of questions they use in case I wanted to do another meme! So here’s 5 More Questions About Books, and as before, feel free to use the meme yourself.
What book is on your nightstand right now?:
The Angry Heart: Overcoming Borderline and Addictive Disorders: An Interactive Self-Help Guide by Joseph Santoro, PhD. It’s a great book, and I highly recommend it!
What is a book you’ve faked reading?:
Bleak House by Charles Dickens. It was assigned for a required course in British literature. I attempted to read it, but after a couple of chapters and with the other homework I had going on that semester, Sparknotes became my very dear friend. For the record, I aced the exam questions on it. 😉
What’s a book that’s changed your life?:
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. I was raised in a very traditional, religious, patriarchal manner, and this book was what spurred me on to investigate other ways of looking at the world. Needless to say, I am no longer religious; I am a feminist. This book is what started me on the path to free-thought, and I will always love Margaret Atwood for that.
Can you quote a favorite line from a book?:
“…If death
Consort with thee, death is to me as life;
So forcible within my heart I feel
The bond of nature draw me to my own;
My own in thee, for what thou art is mine:
Our state cannot be severed, we are one,
One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.”
Adam to Eve, Paradise Lost by John Milton. One of my favorite quotes of all time.
What’s your favorite book genre?:
This should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone, but dystopian literature followed closely by scifi with horror a super-duper close third.
Book Review: Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
Summary:
Connie, a 30-something Chicana of the 1970s who has led a rough life, enjoys the time she spends in 2137 at Mattapoisett with Luciente. She believes she is a catcher and Luciente a receiver, which allows her to time travel in her mind. Luciente tells her there are two possible futures, and they need her and all the downtrodden to fight and not give up or the utopian future of Mattapoisett will be lost. Connie’s family and friends, however, believe she is schizophrenic and in need of their help. Who is right?
Review:
I almost gave up on this in the first chapter when we discover that Connie’s daughter has been taken away from her due to child abuse. Connie blames everything bad in her life on other people–the police, social workers, white people, her brother, etc… She takes no responsibility for anything. I was concerned that Connie’s opinions were the author’s opinions as well–blame society for everything and take no individual responsibility. I was wrong about that, though, and I am very glad I didn’t stop reading.
Marge Piercy’s writing is astounding. She sets up a complex social situation and leaves it open-ended for the reader to decide who is right, what the problems really are, who is to blame, how things can be fixed. Unlike most books regarding time travel or mental illness, it is not obvious that Connie is actually time traveling or that she is schizophrenic. This fact makes this a book that actually makes you think and ponder big questions.
The future world of Mattapoisett is of course the reason this book is considered a classic of feminist literature. In this society it has been decided that all of the bad dualities of have and have not originate from the original division of male and female, so they have done everything they can to make gender a moot point. The pronouns he and she are not used, replaced with “per,” which is short for “person.” Women no longer bear children, instead they are scientifically made in a “breeder,” and then assigned three people to mother it. These people can be men or women; they are all called mother. In the future of Mattapoisett, women are allowed to be strong; men to be gentle, and that is just the tip of the iceberg of the interesting, thought-provoking elements of Mattapoisett.
At first I was concerned that this book is anti-psychiatry, but really it is just pro-compassion. The reader is forced to observe the world from multiple atypical perspectives that force a questioning of world view. More importantly though it helps the reader to put herself into another person’s perspective, which is something that it is easy to forget to do. To me the key scene in the book (which doesn’t give away any spoilers) is when two people in Mattapoisett dislike each other and are not getting along. The township gets them together and holds a council attempting to help each person see the situation from the other’s perspective, as well as to see the good in the other person.
What I’ve said barely touches the surface of the wonderful elements of this book. I absolutely loved it, and it is a book I will keep and re-read multiple times. I highly recommend it to all.
5 out of 5 stars
Source: PaperBackSwap
Movie Review: Black Dynamite (2009)
Summary:
When Black Dynamite’s brother turns up dead, he comes out of ass kicking retirement to clean up the city streets. There’s more going on than originally met his eye, though. It’s a damn good thing the CIA reissued him his license to kill.
Review:
There’s not much that I love more in my movies than ones that are knowingly making fun of themselves. Black Dynamite is simultaneously a satire of 1970s blaxploitation films and a mockery of itself. The dialogue, characters, outfits, and story are so bad that they’re good, and it’s that bad on purpose. That makes it awesome in my book.
The acting is excellent. You believe in the characters in spite of the ridiculous situations and conversations they’re having. The soundtrack is amazing. It sounds just like 1970s music, only it has specially written lyrics that go along with the story. The storyline is so outlandish that it lands in the awesome zone. If you enjoyed Bill Murray’s appearance in Zombieland, you’re going to like Black Dynamite‘s storyline.
Black Dynamite is hilarious and unique. If you enjoy kitschy, crazy plot, dialogue, and characters, you’ll like it as much as I do.
5 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
Movie Review: Fargo (1996)
Summary:
A car dealer is in deep debt, and his wealthy father-in-law refuses to help him out. Since his father-in-law’s one caveat regarding money is that he will never leave his daughter or grandson in trouble, the car dealer decides to get some men to kidnap his wife, and they will then split the ransom. The plan, naturally, goes horribly awry.
Review:
I think this may be one of the more stupid critically acclaimed movies I’ve ever seen.
Let’s start with the plot. Why is this man in massive debt? Neither myself nor the person I was watching the movie with could quite figure that out. It’s key to me as far as relating to the character to know how exactly he got into this debt to start with. Similarly, why doesn’t the father-in-law consider getting his son-in-law out of debt taking care of the family? It appears that the car dealer is in trouble, and you would think that the father-in-law would want to keep the man his daughter loves safe if for no other reason than to protect her heart. Then there’s the fact that this is quite possibly the most predictable plot I’ve ever seen. One of the kidnappers is crazy? Who’da thunk it?! *rolls eyes*
Moving on to the acting, it was terrible. I’ve seen more facial expression and body language from stone statues than I saw on William H. Macy, who plays the car dealer. The only way I can possibly comprehend Frances McDormand winning an Oscar for her performance is if she naturally has a bubbly, interesting personality, because it can’t be that challenging to play a character as boring as the pregnant police chief. Then there’s the universally horrible midwest accents. I’m friends with a woman who was born and raised in Michigan, and she does not sound like that. She has a slight lilt to her o’s and a’s that is actually cute and attractive, not horribly mangled words such as what these actors purport midwesterners sound like.
It wasn’t until I looked up Fargo to find a movie poster that I discovered it’s supposed to be a “dark comedy.” Oh, I laughed at parts of it alright, but not due to any comedic value. You just have to laugh at a movie that’s this bad.
I don’t recommend anyone to see this movie, but it’s not excruciatingly painful to watch if you find yourself stuck in a room with it, which is the only thing saving it from a one star rating.
2 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
On Writing in Books
Growing up, I was taught that books are precious objects that we do not make any marks in. Of course, most of our books were borrowed from the library, so this made perfect sense.
Then university came, along with my two very text-heavy majors–American History and English and American Literature. I was encouraged to mark up my books, both the primary texts of my history courses and the literature of my English courses. At first I was hesitant, using post-it notes stuck to the pages to mark my ideas. After the course was over, I’d remove the post-it notes, leaving just a few highlighted passages.
Along came the year when I took two courses in a row that taught Paradise Lost. The first course was about heresy in history and literature (freaking amazing class, dudes). The second was on the Western Canon. I opened my copy of Paradise Lost in Western Canon and found myself devastated that all of my heresy observations were gone. Gone and never to return. To this day I wish I had the notations I made during the exquisite heresy lectures. Nothing taught me the vast possibilities in good literature like approaching Paradise Lost in these two different manners did. And nothing showed me better the value of writing in a book.
My experience reading isn’t just for shits and giggles, as the saying goes. I learn things about myself, about the world. My perceptions and ideas flux and change. There are the books that I read as a teen that I’ve re-read in my 20s, and I’ve wished that I could see on the page my reaction to the writing as a teenager.
The experience of reading a word or a phrase and having it strike you. Of wanting to underline it. Of wanting to note what it means to you right then. Expand this to include notations of things you’ve learned in relation to this word or phrase, such as the fact that you googled it and discovered it was dangerous for the author to write such a thing at the time. Or even just the definition of a word you didn’t know.
I know many people think it sullies a book to write in it, but I think it expands the book. I know people who are disgusted if they check out a book from the library and it’s written in, but I find that to be a wonderful treasure. I love seeing how someone else reacted to the same book. Someone who I will never know beyond the fact that they were so moved by a passage that they felt the need to write “omg!!” alongside it or that they knew so much about Greek mythology that they noted which goddess a passage is referring to.
Reading should be interactive, and books are necessarily a part of that. When I die and people clean out my personal library, I want the copies of my books to show the wear and tear that comes from truly interacting with the books you love. I want them to be worn from multiple readings and covered with notations and highlighting made in different colors throughout the course of my life. I want my books to reflect the impact that they’ve had on me, so I’ll continue to write in them. Even if it means that when I decide in my minimalist way to let a book go that I have a more difficult time finding someone to swap with.
Book Review: The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
Summary:
The US government is searching for new biological weapons by sending satellites into the edges of the atmosphere to collect bacteria strains that may exist there but not on earth. Due to concerns of contamination on reentry, an emergency team called Wildfire is created as a contingency plan. When a satellite crashes in the Arizona desert, grotesquely killing all but two residents of a small town, the team of scientists is put to the test in a race to protect humanity.
Review:
An up-front confession: Michael Crichton is one of my favorite authors. I love how realistic his science is, and he writes suspense quite well. I was therefore excited to read his first book. Unfortunately, Andromeda Strain did not live up to these expectations.
The suspense is killed right off the bat with the narration style. The story is told as if it is a report being written up by someone after the event. This means that we not only know that some of humanity survives this impending doom, but that society is still held together enough to want a report. If I’m sure that everything is going to turn out hunky dory in the end, I’m just not going to be all that concerned throughout the book. Similarly, the characters aren’t fleshed out as well as in later books. They are basically their careers. Here’s the bacteriologist. Here’s the professor. here’s the surgeon. They don’t come across as real, rounded people, so I completely failed to care about them at all. This isn’t good for suspense, because if I don’t care about the characters, I’m not going to worry about them too much.
Crichton’s ability to set a scene shines through well in this book, however. Wildfire’s underground station is vividly imagined, as is the scene at the small town in Arizona. It was simultaneously gruesome and exciting. Similarly, his ability to weave real science into a fake scenario is carried off flawlessly here. The glimmers of the writing that would later appear in Jurassic Park and Prey is clear.
Speaking of the science, Andromeda Strain doesn’t age well. An entire page is devoted to explaining binary like it’s this huge complicated thing, which it isn’t to anyone who grew up with computers. Indeed, a lot of the book is devoted to explaining the huge computer in Wildfire’s base. Unlike biological science, in which the basics stay the same, technology changes rapidly. I don’t think it’s a wise choice to focus on in a scientific thriller, unless you are projecting plausible possibilities in technology in the future. Or super awesome possible technology the government may already have. Crichton does this really well in Prey, which is all about nanotechnology. Science horror needs to take me into a world that is a bit more awesome than my own, not lamer. Thankfully, Crichton figured this out in his later books.
If you’re a Michael Crichton fan, The Andromeda Strain is worth the read to see where he started. If you’re new to him though, I’d recommend starting with some of his later books such as Jurassic Park or Prey.
2.5 out of 5 stars
Source: Bought at Violet’s Book Exchange
Movie Review: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Summary:
Elizabeth wakes up one morning to discover her boyfriend, Jeffrey, being distant and acting odd. She nearly immediately intuitively senses that this man is not Jeffrey. The only people to believe her are her boss, Matt, and an author and his wife. Together the four of them struggle against the nearly invisible alien invasion of a type of plant that morphs human bodies in with their own personalities, thereby replacing the humans.
Review:
This is a remake of the 1956 movie of the same name. I was told you don’t need to watch the 1956 version first, but now I’m not so sure. A lot of the story just didn’t make any sense, and I’m wondering if those are plot points that were better addressed in the 1956 version. For instance, what makes someone at risk to become an alien hybrid? We know that the aliens came into Elizabeth’s household on a flower, yet her boyfriend morphs overnight whereas she does not. Why? Similarly, a process is started by the aliens and at some point it becomes dangerous for that person to sleep, for when they sleep, the metamorphosis completes. Why isn’t everyone transforming in their sleep? At what point is it dangerous to sleep? Why does sleep complete the metamorphosis? For that matter, why do the aliens duplicate the humans’ dna in a pod? Why don’t they just invade the body and combine dna that way? Why does the person’s body disappear when the pod is complete? Why have they come to earth? And for the love of god, why do they make that horrible screeching noise? I’m pretty sure plants don’t generally make noise. Obviously, this movie left me with a lot of questions and not many answers, and that’s something I don’t tolerate well from my scifi movies. If you’re going to do scifi, do it well. Build a world that is not our own but still makes sense! It ruins the experience for me if I’m continually yanked out of that world by my brain going, “Wait…..what?!”
On the other hand, the special effects are really good for the 1970s. The opening with the alien life wafting around space is impressive and reminded me of cgi. The pods are simultaneously realistic-looking and grotesque. Whatever noise they recorded for the aliens screeching is truly spine-chilling.
Two items of note. The first is that you get to see Jeff Goldblum of Jurassic Park in another brainy, geek role, which is fun. Also, there’s some brief nudity, which is always fun in a movie when it’s not in the context of awkward, obviously not really happening sex.
If you like scifi you won’t regret watching this movie. Just be sure to have something to do while you watch it–like knitting, or a game of Clue–to keep your mind off of the glaring plot holes and unanswered questions.
2 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
Movie Review: Phantasm (1979)
Summary:
After Mike’s parents and a family friend die, he starts to suspect something sinister is going on at the Morningside funeral home. After seeing cloaked dwarves and a flying sphere of death, he manages to convince his brother Jody that not all is right. The two set out to defeat The Tall Man before any more townspeople die.
Review:
It’s rare for a movie to be simultaneously funny and scary, but Phantasm pulls it off well. The Tall Man is incredibly spooky. His mere appearance makes you jump. Yet the dialogue provides comic relief. An example is early in the movie, Mike thinks he’s heard something sinister in the woods. Jody respond, “Ah, it was probably just a gopher in heat.”
The spooky elements are actually creative. Very few horror tropes are utilized. Some of the scenes reminded me of The Shining, with the eerie, waiting, quiet. The audience and the character knows something is afoot, yet there is nothing right then that is actually wrong. It gives delicious chills down the spine.
What really tips this over into awesomeland, is the character Reggie–an ice cream truck driver. For almost the entire movie, he wears his ice cream man uniform complete with a giant black bow tie, yet he manages to be badass. He jams on the guitar with the teenagers and fights a good fight. He’s such a creative character, going beyond the immediate perception of an ice cream man. I wish there were more characters like him in horror movies.
If you enjoy old-school horror with a touch of comedy, or just want to see some creative scares, I recommend Phantasm.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 