Book Review: Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King (Series, #5)
Summary:
The gunslinger’s katet have a lot more on their plate than just continuing along the path of the beam. Susannah is pregnant and has developed another personality, Mia, to deal with the pregnancy as it is most likely demonic. The Rose is in danger in then when of 1977 New York City. The man who owns the empty lot it grows in is under pressure from the mob to sell it to an unseen man. So the last thing the katet needs is to run into a town desperately in need of the help of gunslingers.
The Calla, a town made up of rice growers and ranchers who mostly give birth to twins, has been facing a plague once every generation. Creatures referred to as Wolves come and take one child out of every set of twins between the ages of about 4 and puberty. The child is later returned mentally retarded. Their local robot messenger, Andy, has warned them that the Wolves are coming in about a month, and their holy man believes gunslingers are on their way.
Unable to turn down their duty as gunslingers or give up on their quest for the Dark Tower, can the gunslingers pull it all off or is it just more than any katet, even one as strong as theirs, can handle?
Review:
Toward the beginning of the book, Roland says something like, “Being a gunslinger means weeks of planning, preparation, and hard work for 5 minutes of battle.” That’s really a good description of this book. It’s a lot of exposition, albeit very interesting exposition, followed by a rather anticlimactic battle that is really the exposition for the next leg of the katet’s journey. This could have gone really badly, but thankfully there’s a lot of information King needs to tell us, and most of it is interesting and relevant to the gunslingers’ world, so it works.
King is good at creating a culture. The Calla and its people possess a very distinctive speech pattern and colloquialisms that are simultaneously easy enough for the reader to learn and to follow. He hints that he just took the Maine accent and exaggerated it. Maybe that’s why a New England gal like myself found it so easy to follow. In any case, the town of twins, ranchers, and rice is rich with local legends, folklore, and traditions. It is enjoyable to read about, and the town also manages to provide information about the katet’s greater quest for the Dark Tower.
It is well-known that King’s Dark Tower series brings in elements and characters from his other works, as he sees all of his stories happening in the same world and being connected. To that end, the holy man of the Calla is the priest from Salem’s Lot, and a part of Wolves of the Calla is him relating his backstory to the katet. Something that irritated me about all of the tales told in the “Telling of Tales” section of Wolves of the Calla is that it would switch from the character speaking to an italicized third person narrative. I don’t know if all of the italicized portions were previously written for other books or if King felt that he needed to be an omnipotent narrator in order to properly tell everything that had happened, but I found it disjointing and jarring. It was only my unanswered questions about the Wolves and the Dark Tower that kept me reading through that section.
I enjoyed the growth in the relationship between Roland and Jake. Roland is gradually growing into a father figure/adviser, while Jake is gradually becoming a man and an equal with the other gunslingers. King handles this transition well, and it is believable. Meanwhile, Eddie and Susannah’s relationship doesn’t change per se, but Eddie does realize that he will always love Susannah more than she loves him. It is evident that both of them are uncomfortable with her multiple personalities. This is an issue that clearly has not yet been resolved.
I do have three gripes with King. The first is that he persists in calling Susannah’s multiple personalities schizophrenia, which is just wrong. Schizophrenics hear voices, at worst, they do not have multiple personalities. What Susannah has is Dissociative Identity Disorder, and it is just inexcusable that he would get this wrong.
Second, although previously in the series the reader isn’t allowed to know or see something Roland knows, the reader always gets to know what the other gunslingers know. Here, information is pointedly held back from the reader. I can only assume this was an attempt to maintain suspense about the Wolves, which I found to be a cop-out. Either come up with an idea creative enough that we’ll be surprised anyway or have the characters be surprised as well as us. Also, I already had the wolves figured out long before they are revealed anyway. The suspense came in wondering how the final battle would play out, not in wondering who the Wolves were.
Third, I don’t like the fact that Susannah’s main storyline is a pregnancy. I don’t like that one of her key roles so far as a gunslinger was to fuck the shit out of a demon so that Jake could be pulled through (The Wastelands). I also really don’t like that something as simple as her being pregnant causes her to abandon her husband and her katet in the form of another personality, Mia. It almost seems that King uses the multiple personalities just so that he can have a sweet woman around when he needs one but then can instantaneously turn her back into all of the negative images of women out there. I need to see where Susannah’s storyline winds up before I can offer a final analysis of the character and its implications, but at the moment, it reads as a very negative view of women.
The overarching storyline of the quest for the Dark Tower, however, is still going strong in this book. We learn a bunch of new, important information about the Tower, the beams, and the worlds, and new questions pop up. With each book it becomes more evident that saving the Tower is important to the well-being of all worlds. I am pleased to report that this was a marked improvement over the previous book, although not quite up to the intensity of The Waste Lands or pure readability of The Gunslinger. It still manages to suck you in and gets the story back on the path of the beam.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Borrowed
Previous Books in Series:
The Gunslinger, review
The Drawing of the Three, review
The Waste Lands, review
Wizard and Glass, review
Friday Fun! (Rain, Gardening, and Cooking)
In spite of the torrential downpour that Boston experienced last weekend (check out pics of the sinkhole that erupted under a line of the T here), I still managed to have a very nice weekend. I got to flex my Beirut playing muscles Friday night and got to spend most of the rest of the storm holed up inside, except of course for Monday when I had to commute to work. Also, inside didn’t exactly mean no rain as both my library and my apartment sprung leaks in the roof. They thought they had fixed the library ones. They were wrong. The hospital didn’t even bother wet vacing the carpet this time around. As for my apartment, it held strong for most of the storm, but on Monday morning, I woke up to water running down one of the walls. It appears some of that wind finally took its toll on the roof tiles. Almost everyone I talked to though said there was at least some water damage to their homes, so it has been proven yet again that I am not a unique snowflake (thank you, Fight Club).
The weather the rest of the week almost totally makes up for it though. It’s been in the high 60s to low 70s. I haven’t had to have my heat on in days! I took this as a sign of spring and started my herb and flower seeds last night. I’m planning on ordering my veggie and strawberry seeds today and hopefully will get them planted soon as well. I’m honestly pretty darn stoked for all the food aspects of summer–plants in my kitchen, farmer’s market on the way home, possibly taking a whack at canning by myself for the first time, berry picking, etc… So much yumminess and new skills to learn!
I tried out two new recipes this week. The first was a low-calorie, low-dairy mac and cheese bake (I printed it from some random website, which I can’t remember off the top of my head). It used pureed butternut squash to replace most of the cheese. The only cheese used was 1 cup of mozzarella and 2 tablespoons of cream cheese. Naturally, the pasta was whole wheat. I enjoyed this, and I think it will be a good recipe with time. A little something was missing from it, though. A wee bit bland. My dad suggested nutmeg. Any other thoughts?
The other recipe was for stuffed eggplants from my cookbook The Vegetarian Bible. Basically you halve the eggplant, scoop out the insides, then mix the insides with tomatoes, onions, garlic, and al dente pasta. Then you stick it back in plus mozzarella and bread crumbs then into the oven. This wasn’t a bad recipe. It was nutritious, filling, and tasted fine. I just didn’t love it or really like it enough to warrant the labor intensity of it. I doubt I’ll make it again unless I randomly have lots of eggplants I need to use up. The other recipe I’ve tried from the cookbook was really good though, so I think this might be a personal taste thing.
What did you guys get up to this week? Any new things tried? Happy weekends!
PaperBackSwap
A while back I told you guys about a book swapping website I’ve been using called Swaptree. In the interim I started using PaperBackSwap, so I thought I should let you guys know about it too.
PaperBackSwap is slightly different from Swaptree. You acquire books using credits. (You are given some free ones when you start. I believe it’s 3) You can get credits either from sending someone else a book or you can buy them. The credits are $3.45 a piece, but if you buy larger batches of them they cost less. So even if you buy your credits instead of only using credits earned by sending books, you’re still getting books for $3.45 or less, which is wicked cheap.
Since PaperBackSwap doesn’t use a direct swapping method, you wishlist books you want. When a copy of the book becomes available, it is first offered whoever first wishlisted it. This sounds like a long wait, but I haven’t had to wait too terribly long for anything yet. Also if you put in a large wishlist, you tend to get a pretty steady flow of books being offered to you. Another cool feature of PaperBackSwap is PBS Market, which is basically an overstock shop of books. You can get these for super-low price either paying just money or just credits or a combination of money and credits. When a book you’ve wishlisted becomes available in PBS Market, they notify you but your position is also maintained in the wishlist unless you choose to buy the PBS Market book.
You should be aware though that PaperBackSwap leaves it up to the requester to set the specific condition requirements for books. The website generally requests that the book be in “good condition” with “no markings,” but anything beyond that is up to the requester. Say that you don’t want books that have been in a smoker’s home. You would say in your settings “No books from homes with smoke please.” This message would be visible to the giver when you request the book. They can then reject it for the “doesn’t meet requester’s requirements” reason. However, I found that you should put some sort of requirement in because it makes givers think twice about sending you an iffy copy. For mine I just reiterated PaperBackSwap’s “no excessive highlighting or writing.” Since then I’ve been receiving better quality books.
I like using both websites, because if there’s a book I really want, I can get it quicker for cheap on PaperBackSwap, but if I’m a bit more patient Swaptree ensures that I’m doing a 1 to 1 trade. Whereas on PaperBackSwap I’ve sent out 2 books but received 10. Oops, lol.
If you do choose to join PaperBackSwap, please let them know that I referred you as it will get me free credits. My username is tapcat16. Also, please check out the books I have available and see if you want any. You’ll know for sure that you’re getting your copy from a reliable giver and a super-speedy shipper, if I do say so myself. :-) I also frequently add books, possibly even ones I’ve reviewed here, so check back often. I’ve added a widget on the right-hand side of my blog that will link you directly to my profile for future reference. I like my books to find new homes. It makes me all happy inside.
So there’s the inside scoop on PaperBackSwap. Cheers!
Friday Fun! (Tiffany, Wii, and Websites at Work, Oh My!)
Even though this week was spring break from grad school, I still had to work full time and of course managed to be super-busy outside of work as well.
My friend Tiffany from my days of interning with Americorps/the National Park Service has been in town for training for her job. She lives in Virginia, so this was pretty darn exciting. This was her last week in Boston, so she came over to my apartment so we could visit in relative quiet as opposed to the noise of a restaurant or pub. It was so lovely to get to catch up after all this time, and I was glad to discover that in a relatively short time we were chit-chatting just like we did when we lived and worked together at the park.
This week I discovered that having the tax return money to buy a Wii and tv is one thing, finding places that have them in stock is another entirely. I won’t even go into the debacle that was the store brand tv purchased at Best Buy (needless to say, it was returned), but I will say what the hell, Nintendo? You have an insanely popular gaming system, and you’re not meeting demand? That just doesn’t make sense to me. After much searching, genius finally struck me in the form of Walmart.com, which had a few consoles in stock. Huzzah! It arrived on Wednesday, and I’m enjoying it just as much as I thought I would. My tv arrived from Walmart.com yesterday, but I have yet to set it up. Fingers crossed that we’ll be able to make Netflix stream on it!
Work has also been very busy as this is the time of year when I update our website. Long story short, with hospital privacy concerns, one person has control of all of the websites connected to the hospital, which means we get to update our websites once a year and that we have zero to very very little control over the appearance. This is frustrating to me as it limits what I can do. (For instance, I’ve been having to use tables. TABLES). Since we can only update once a year, that also means a bunch of our links are broken by the time that comes around, so I spend a lot of time hunting down the good ones. Thankfully, this will soon be in the past as the hospital is organizing an intranet, which means I will get to be webmaster of our websites! (And the nurses’ websites, which I’m actually a bit nervous about). So as soon as I finish this update to tide our patrons over until the intranet, I’ll commence working on the intranet. You guys, I’m nervous, this will be the first time I’ll be using my real web programming skills for work. Eep. *crosses fingers*
I’m excited for the weekend! Be expecting more reviews of old and obscure books as the Audiobooks app is a good companion to web design. Happy weekends!
Book Review: Beowulf by Anonymous/Unknown
Summary:
This classic, epic poem tells the story of the life of Beowulf, a Geat warrior. In his youth, Beowulf assists the Danes who are being terrorized by a monster named Grendel. He defeats Grendel and Grendel’s mother single-handedly in hand to hand combat. When the Geatish king dies, Beowulf acts as guardian of the kingdom while the prince grows up. All is well until a dragon starts to terrorize the land.
Review:
Having read The Odyssey, The Iliad, and The Aeneid and liking them all quite well (in spite of the fact that The Aeneid is a Roman rip-off of the Greek epics) I was expecting something somewhat different from Beowulf than what I got. Although the adventures in these epics generally center around one or two characters, they are also the tales of the history of an entire people. Since Beowulf conducts pretty much all of his battles on his own, I don’t really get that vibe from Beowulf. It also is odd to me that these people seem to have a real talent for pissing off monsters buried deep in the Earth. Whereas the other epic poems are about battles between nations and the impact that has on individuals, this is really just about some guy who goes around killing monsters that people have managed to royally piss off. It’s kind of like reading a videogame in which every level consists of one monstrous boss.
Maybe this whole difference in tone is due to the fact that this pagan history is being told by a Christian narrator, whereas the other epics are told by pagan narrators. There’s definitely a vibe of “oh those silly old pagans” to Beowulf, which makes it rather hard to relate to the characters.
On the other hand, just as in the other classic, epic poems, the language is beautiful. Since I listened to this as an audiobook, I got to really listen to it. Hearing epic poetry read aloud is almost always better than reading it, as the oral tradition is where they came from. Bloody scenes manage to come across as exquisite due purely to the language being used.
If you enjoy epic poetry, you’ll definitely enjoy Beowulf. However, if you’re new to epic poems, I’d recommend you start with The Odyssey instead.
3 out of 5 stars
Length: 245 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: Librivox recording via Audiobooks app for the iTouch
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
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Movie Review: Bolt (2008)
Summary:
Bolt is the star of a weekly tv action show in which he protects the little girl he loves from evil masterminds using his super doggy powers such as the super bark. The producers, however, have worked hard to make sure Bolt doesn’t know it’s not real, so when he accidentally gets shipped to NYC, he’s in for a bit of a surprise. Lucky for him along the way he teams up with an alley cat and a hamster who help him truly become a super dog.
Review:
Anyone who knows me knows I have a thing for talking animal movies. It’s probably got something to do with the fact that in the imagination land that is my head, I tend to create my own soundtrack for the animals around me, so when dogs in a movie see a ball and we hear them saying “ball! ball! ball!” instead of barking….yeah, I’m hooked.
That said, I wasn’t intrigued by the preview at all. It all seemed so contrived, that I went into it expecting not to like it. I was, however, pleasantly surprised. The story manages to be cute and believable enough. Bolt isn’t egotistic. He’s intensely loyal in a way only dogs can be. He’s been led to believe he can shoot lasers with his eyes, and it’s kind of adorable when he tries to melt iron in the real world.
The characters he meets along the way are the best of what we’ve come to expect from animated movies. From the bad-ass alley cat to the over-exuberant hamster to the gangster pigeons they all work together to make Bolt’s non-television world the vibrant place it becomes.
The overall message of Bolt is actually quite delightful, and a surprise coming from Disney. Only when Bolt comes to accept that over-the-top superpowers are fake can he come to be the best dog he can be in the real world.
I would definitely show this to kids, but anyone who enjoys animated movies without shout-outs to adults watching will enjoy this film.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
Movie Review: Seven (1995)
Summary:
Detective Sommerset is almost ready to retire. He just has to introduce the new detective, Mills, to the inner-city beat, but two grisly murders mark the appearance of a serial killer. His murders are each a punishment for one of the seven deadly sins, and Mills will need all the help from Sommerset he can get to solve the crimes.
Review:
For those of us who grew up on CSI, grisly crime scenes are nothing new. What makes them work in this film is their subtle and not so subtle associations with each of the seven deadly sins. The English major in me gloried at the detectives’ research into Dante’s works. The crimes are not just well thought-out; they are literary.
Beyond the crimes though is the story of the two detectives ever resonating just beneath the surface. With a job this grisly in such a bad part of town, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t have a family and live here, and you can’t do this job anywhere else. Sommerset chose the job, but he clearly wonders if that will be the best choice for Mills.
Pitt, Freeman, and Spacey are all great actors, and they do not disappoint here. I do think they miscast Paltrow as Mills’ wife, however. She doesn’t read as blue collar whatsoever, whereas Mills does. There seems to be little chemistry between the two, and I am certain that is due to Paltrow’s acting. Her doe eyes do not suit the character.
Although the story can move a bit slowly at times, it is an enjoyable watch for anyone with a literary slant and a taste for the grisly.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
Friday Fun! (Nina’s Back, Refunds, and Gardening)
This was a busy, but overall fun week for me. One of my closest friends, Nina, was on a two month trip to Israel, and this week she returned home! (She kept a blog of her trip, check it out!) She and one of my other good friends came over Wednesday night, and we all cooked together. Well, Nina and I did. E was the cheering squad. Also, she brought the chocolate. Nina made tehini the way they do in Israel, and we had that with whole wheat bread for an appetizer. It’s a lot like hummus, only more bitter. For dinner we had whole wheat crust pizza topped with vodka sauce, marinated tempeh, shredded carrots, avocado, onions, spinach, and cheese. You guys, vodka sauce lends such a nice sweetness to a pizza. Swoon. Also, Nina brought me a lovely tapestry from Israel. I believe she said it was made by the tent dwelling Arabs, but I was also tipsy when she gave it to me, so I could totally be wrong about that. Although it is many colors, it is predominantly a vibrant shade of red with hints of black, so it will go really well with my living room. I’m so happy Nina is back, and she and E are going to be roommates, so I’ll be seeing much more of both of them.
In tidbits of news, my state refund came in, so there’ll be a bit of shopping this weekend. I was going to get a Wii, but I think I’ll wait for my federal refund for that. Instead, I’ll probably get a new tv, mostly so I can finally hitch up my mac to it and stream Netflix. Also, what’s the point of having a Wii if you’re playing on an old tv? (Don’t worry, budgeting types, some of the money will be going into savings and some into the terrifying undergrad debt).
I’ve decided (partly spurred on by my librarian friend, Kristi, check her blog out), that come hell or high water I will get some gardening done this year in spite of the fact that I have neither yard nor balcony and a kitty who is very determined not to share windowsills. I found a windowbox that is a bit sturdier and fits on the windowsill better, so hopefully she won’t knock it off. I’ve also got some other ideas up my sleeve (such as the topsy/turvy planting thing). I’m planning on growing tomatoes, herbs, peppers, and strawberries. I’m also considering potatoes via an indoor method Nina learned about in Israel. I am, however, known to have a brown thumb, so hopefully this pursuit won’t be in vain.
Happy weekend everyone!
Book Review: The Sweet Smell of Success and Other Stories by Ernest Lehman
Summary:
A collection of Ernest Lehman’s noir style short fiction, including The Comedian and The Sweet Smell of Success, which was turned into a film in the 1950s. Varying in length from flash to many pages, most of the stories address the damage caused to individuals by the overly hungry theater, movie, and television industries. Some of the stories also look at individuals suffering from discontent in marriage.
Review:
My first entry in my reading challenge to read books I bought for university but never got around to reading. This was assigned for my Film Noir class in conjunction with watching The Sweet Smell of Success. I loved that class and at least enjoyed the assigned books that I read at the time. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for these short stories.
Lehman’s writing doesn’t just evoke the past of the 1950s, it evokes an alternate, incredibly depressing universe. I have the feeling that was his point in writing these stories. The entertainment industry is evil and will slowly rob you of your soul. There’s definitely merit in that, but it can get a bit depressing and redundant to read the same theme over and over again.
I also found the dialogue jarring. The characters do things like call other men “baby,” and I can’t help but wonder if people actually talked like that back then. It made the stories ring a bit more fake to me than I think they should have.
Three of the stories revolve around press agent Sidney Falco and columnist J. J. Hunsecker. While I enjoyed these short stories it felt as if someone had ripped out three chapters from a back and handed them to me out of order. I wish Lehman had written this as a book or novella. He clearly had an affinity for these characters, as he repeatedly came back to them to explore them, so I wonder why he never just wrote a long piece about them.
The Comedian though is where Lehman hits his stride in this style and theme. He takes just the right amount of time to tell the story. He subtly lets us know the background information vital to feeling something for these characters on this crucial day, and the overarching them of the story is deeper than “the entertainment industry is evil.” Oh, it is still represented as bad, but that is not the main point of the story, which makes it stronger. I recommend reading this short story if you can get your hands on it.
Overall, if you’re in the mood for a marathon session of dark noir, you’ll enjoy this book. Otherwise, I’d recommend finding one of the short stories to get a taste of the 1950s version of the genre.
2.5 out of 5 stars
Source: University bookstore
Movie Review: Penelope (2006)
Summary:
The Wilhern family was cursed by a witch that the first daughter born to the family would look like a pig. It took hundreds of years for a daughter to be born, though, so Penelope’s appearance was quite the surprise to her family, and they reacted by ensconcing her in the house to protect her from paparazzi. Gaining love by someone of the blue bloods is the only way to break the curse, and Penelope’s parents are determined to find it via a matchmaker. Penelope, though, just wants to live and love like regular people.
Review:
I was expecting Penelope to be your average, predictable romantic comedy, probably because that’s how the previews presented it back when it came out. I don’t mind a romcom every once in a while, particularly if I’m having a girl’s night with one of my friends. However, I would not describe Penelope as a romantic comedy. It is a fairy tale in the classic sense of the word. It teaches a lesson, a beautiful one, and manages to completely surprise you at the moment it is unveiled.
The acting is pretty good all around. I had only seen Christina Ricci in Prozac Nation, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to forget her as the mentally unstable Elizabeth. However, all thoughts of that movie quickly left my head, which is a credit to Ricci’s acting ability. Also of note is the fact that there is a little person in the movie, and the fact that he is a little person is of no relevance at all. He’s just a reporter who happens to be little, and I really enjoyed that.
The costumes and sets are stunning. I wanted to live in the Wilhern’s house and own their books. I want a library whose door is camouflaged by bookshelves! I want the dresses Penelope wears. *sigh*
There is a little something that held me back from totally loving the movie, though. I really liked it, but I didn’t love it, and I’m not sure why that is. I think maybe it has something to do with the special effects used for Penelope’s nose. It just didn’t seem all that bad to me. Also, I think there was some miscasting in the two male love interests. Neither of them felt quite right for their roles.
However, it is still an enjoyable movie to watch, and I particularly recommend it for teenage girls or for women who want a chick flick with a good message.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
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Opinions of a Wolf 