Heather's meme, Indiana debate...

I have been suffering from asthma most of this week, due to a cold my son and I shared last week, so I'm not writing much tonight, just pointing out some fun things I've found on line. I promise to return tomorrow, when hopefully not going to work will leave me with more energy. Breathing is good!

Heather at Errant Dreams has a great book meme. 1.who is your all-time favourite author? 2.Who was your favourite author, and why? Do you still consider him or her among your favourites? 3.Who's the most recent addition to your favourite authors, and why? 4.If someone asked you who were your favourite authors right now, which authors would pop out of your mouth first? Are there any you'd add on further reflection? I will do it myself tomorrow, but it's really late tonight, and I thought I'd give the link to any of you Gentle Readers looking for a fun book meme to do. Please let me - and Heather! - know if you do it, I'd be really interested in your answers! And I will do it tomorrow......and Nymeth has done a wonderful response, worth checking out to see what she says about Neil Gaiman. I love how she phrases why she loves his writing.
Over at Carl's blog, there is a raging debate going on in the comments on the new Indiana Jones movie. I wrote about it in my last blog, and left a comment on Carl's post as well. I am in the minority in that i liked it. I went in expecting a movie with fun and adventure, and that's what I got. The problem with 'franchise' movies, is the longer between movies, the greater our expectations, I think. Anyway, many are disappointed, and there are some very, very good points raised on Carl's post and comments, so if you're up for a debate, go check it out.
And, I have a very big thank you to go to Carl, and Kim at Bold.Blue.Adventure, because the books I won last month in their contests arrived this week! House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende is now sitting on my 1% challenge pile, and Horns and Beams looks fun - a children's fairy tale book by a Mississippi author, along with the postcard, tiny cat card, and delightful button. I will read Horns and Beams this summer - I have two challenges to finish in June, first! and let you all know how I like it. In the meantime, thank you very much, Carl and Kim. I am thrilled to have won something, and as we all know, books in the mail! I love opening parcels with books in them! thank you! and to all you out there who think you can't win, I'm living proof you can, since I have won in contests exactly the same amount (twice) over the course of my life, as I just won now, so you can too!!
I am going to go think of my favourite authors now, and see if I can come up with a stunning answer like Nymeth did!! Happy reading, everyone!

Fairy Tale and Movie week, and one superhero confession

Last week turned out to be delightful in terms of what I was reading, and the movies I ended up seeing. For someone who doesn't get out a lot now - having kids under the age of 5 = minimal social life, when there aren't many babysitters around!! So, this past weekend ended up being a real treat for me.


Fairy Tale 1:
I read Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber. Wow. This is an adult fairy tale book. By this I mean Carter writes in a language with symbols that are appropriate for older teens and adults. She has taken fairy tales we love, and rewritten them from a darker, almost gothic perspective. Most of the stories are about the moments before a marriage, and after, when the girl changes into a woman. That twilight time between childhood and adulthood, when blood has first begun to flow, and the girl is making her way into the world for the first time. Has she been taught well? These are about her awakening to life and love: From The Bloody Chamber (Bluebeard): I lay in bed alone. And I longed for him. And he disgusted me.
Were there jewels enough in all his safes to recompense me for this predicament?
From The Courtship of Mr Lyon (Beauty and the Beast): He forced himself to master his shyness, which was that of a wild creature, and so she contrived to master her own - to such effect that soon she was chattering away to him as if she had known him all her life.

and from The Company of Wolves (Little Red Riding Hood): Ten wolves, twenty wolves - so many wolves she could not count them, howling in concert as if demented or deranged. Their eyes reflected the light from the kitchen and shone like a hundred candles.
It is very cold, poor things, she said; no wonder they howl so.
She closed the window on the wolves' threnody and took off her scarlet shawl, the colour of poppies, the colour of sacrifices, the colour of her menses, and, since her fear did her no good, she ceased to be afraid.

Most of the stories are familiar to anyone who has ever read fairy tales as a child: Bluebeard, Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, Puss-in-Boots. I have to confess that I loved most of all, The Company of Wolves. It was better than I hoped for, since I love the movie that is based on Carter's short story, also called The Company of Wolves. It satisfies why Red Riding Hood could survive. Because, there are many different tellings of Little Red Riding Hood, in which the grandmother sometimes lives, they both live, they both die, Riding Hood is saved by her father, by a hunter.....it is as if this story is primordial, and we have to try to find the ending and shape that best suits our own natures, over time and culture. Angela Carter celebrated the beast within - not the monster that was bluebeard, who is a corruption of sexuality, power and hunger, but the natural beast of the world that is within us as well as without. These are powerful stories, powerful retellings that are adult fairy tales not just because of the sex, but because of the theme of transformation. I think this book - these retellings by Carter - is close to the original spirit of the fairy tales, dark and breathtakingly beautiful and fragile. Which transformation is. There is even a vampire (or two) in this collection. I love this line, which reminded me so much of Anne Rice's Vampire series: "This being, rooted in change and time,is about to collide with the timeless Gothic eternity of the vampires, for whom all is as it has always been and will be." The Gothic eternity of the vampires; how did Angela Carter know, since this book came out in 1979, before the vampire (and goths) were part of any scene? Somehow, she did.

Highly recommended. One I will come back to again and again.


Fairy Tale 2:
Then, we rented Sleeping Beauty, which we finally found at the video store yesterday. So my daughter and I watched Sleeping Beauty together. She was a bit afraid of the dragon, until she realized Prince Philip would know how to kill him. Now, I didn't tell her this, but I was disappointed the three fairies helped Philip so much. It felt like all he had to do was wave the sword, and they did everything else for him, including casting the spell that takes the sword directly to the dragon's weak spot! So I felt cheated...I wanted to see Philip have to think and reason and find out how to kill the dragon, which is the whole point of facing the beast yourself. So, I was once again reminded of Disney and why I dislike it in the end. I do admit i love the colours of Sleeping Beauty, and I love the struggle between the good and bad magic, and I thought the best characters were the good witches and Malificent, who is magnificent as the Evil Queen! (Holly-Anne hated her hat, by the way, which is way to symbolic of the devil for my tastes. Stupid Disney) I think my daughter likes the animal movies better (Lion King, etc), but at least we finally got to see it.


Movie 1:
Then, Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I won't give any plot points away! Just.....it's worth going to see. one day I will discuss this movie more when I think everyone has seen it, for now I am going to say - hurray, I saw the movie while it was new in the theatres!!! and my husband and I had a date! My eldest son Duncan, 19, babysat for us as a birthday present to us. A lovely gift, and one most welcome since my husband loves Indiana Jones very much. Very enjoyable movie, breathtaking and alot of fun, like the Indiana Jones we all know and love. Oh, and my love also bought me the Indiana Jones DVD movie collection for my birthday.....which I burst out laughing to, since I said it was a gift he wanted more, had wanted for ages in fact, and I was going to get it for him for Father's Day!!! I told him I had been Simpsoned (after the Simpsons, the tv show),and when he looked at me puzzled, I said, because you bought me a gift that was for you! Thankfully he got the humour, and to make up for it went out and ordered something from Dr Who for me, because I'd been looking for the soundtrack for a long time. The Dr Who theme song is one of my all-time favourite pieces of music and I often joke I want it played at my funeral. I think we will laugh about this for a long time to come!!


Movie 2:
Cloverfield - my eldest son, Duncan, age 19 going on 30, was after me to see this movie all last summer. I hated Blair Witch Project, and then I heard there were spider-like things in Cloverfield, so I said no. Well, we were looking for something to watch together and when I discovered that he still hadn't seen it, I gave in. The things we do for our children! Lo, to my amazement, I really enjoyed it. Much, much more than I thought I would. I disagreed with some of what the characters did, but this just lets me imagine how I would write the story, so for starting stories in your head - what if's - this is good for that alone. Very few gory scenes - no slashing/knifing/endless killing sprees! No saw! No mindless serial killer and stupid characters! It was a good film. So, I had to apologize to my son and tell him I owe him one now.



Superhero Confession:
Now, if I can convince my eldest that I NEED to see the new Batman movie when it opens (and I do!!!)...maybe he will babysit again (or come with me to the movie.) Not sure if my husband wants to see this one, he's an Indiana Jones fan. I can hardly wait, I am a Batman chick, and adore the 1990's animated cartoons that were so dark and funny (but no one will watch them with me! *boo hoo*!) And it's not the dark suit, guys! It's the tortured soul of Batman I like! His dark past and what he has done with it....and I like bats. I held one - a live one, I know, stupid, they do carry rabies, but it was a warm night in February and somehow this tiny bat flew into me, and it was windy and snowing, so I carried it as far as my corner from downtown Sparks St, when it suddenly flew away. I was going to call the wild bird center here in Ottawa to give it shelter for the winter, so I was a little sad when it flew off. Oh, I loved looking into its dear little face, and seeing its leathery wings and little mouse-like body! Yes, I am counting down to Batman and the Joker and that lovely gothic city and all that dark, witty dialogue......

Book Awards Reading Challenge II

Yes, you are seeing correctly. I am joining another Reading challenge! I think I like this one because it's from a wide selection of award winners. I thought the list of awards I could choose from (that I love reading naturally) looked really fun: The Agatha, The Edgar, World Fantasy, Nebula, Gold Dagger - yes, mystery or fantasy awards! I can do that! they are there, as well as the Dublin, Giller (our own Canadian Book Award), the Governor General (another Canadian Award), The Arthur C. Clarke, The Carnegie, the Newbery, on and on the list goes. Something for everyone, I think. 3M at 1MoreChapter is hosting this challenge. Here is the link to the challenge

Here are the rules:
10 months. 10 award winners.
Rules:


1. Read 10 award winners from August 1, 2008 through June 1, 2009.

2. You must have at least FIVE different awards in your ten titles.

3. Overlaps with other challenges are permitted.

4. You don't have to post your choices right away, and your list can change at any time.

5. 'Award winners' is loosely defined; make the challenge fit your needs, keeping in mind Rule #2.

And gee, I have already named the 5 awards that most interest me! I have to admit, I have no idea what books I am going to select just yet. Oooh, I see the Bram Stoker Award too.... I am going to leave my list empty for now, and add to it as I find them. I just saw this challenge and knew it was another one I could have fun doing. A lot of fun.

Duncan Lawrie Dagger (formerly the CWA Gold Dagger Award, mystery)
1. The Broken Shore - Peter Temple
Duncan Lawrie International Dagger (best mystery translated into English)
2. Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand - Fred Vargas (2007 winner) - DONE
3. Beowulf - Seamus Heaney - Whitbread Award winner 1999
4. Briar Rose - Jane Yolen - Mythopoeic Award - DONE
5. Possession - A.S. Byatt - Booker Prize
6. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie (Booker Prize)
7. DONE - Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susannna Clarke (World Fantasy Award)-
8. DONE - Tamsin - Peter S. Beagle (Mythopoeic Award)
9. Birthday Letters - Ted Hughes (Whitbread Award Winner 1998)
10. Alive Together - Lisel Mueller (winner, 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry)

I will let you know, Gentle Reader, when I choose my books, or I'll list them on my sidebar. Thanks, 3M, for hosting this one!!!

********ALTERNATES***********************ADDED FEB 11 2009.
1.DONE - Doomsday Book - Connie Willis (Nebula Award, 1992)
2. DONE - The Grey King - Susan Cooper (Newbery Medal Winner, 1976)
3. DONE - Watchmen - Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (Hugo Award for "Other Form", 1988)
4. DONE - Case Histories - Kate Atkinson (Prix Westminster, 2004)
5. DONE - The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss ( Quill Award, 2007)

Happy birthday to me

So, you asked for book pictures. I have a confession to make. I went on a book-buying spree two weeks ago when I was sick. I went to one of the better used bookstores in Ottawa, The Book Bazaar. And I had a very large budget, for the first time in my life. I wanted to know what it was like to spend a fairly large amount of money on books, something I've always dreamed of. Then, there was the book exchange last weekend, where I found more than a few books to bring home. And finally, my birthday today. Back in early May I had a post for the new books I bought when Toby got his new job (we all got some books that day), that I couldn't decide would be for my birthday - they all ended up being saved for today! (I didn't add the photo here as it is on the earlier post.) So, as well as those books you already knew about, the following are the books that have arrived in our house this month. All in all, I think I have about an entire bookshelf of new-to-me books to read! I believe I qualify for Book Addict now.....Here they are:

1) Book Bazaar #1 pile (from bottom up):
The Tarot - Brian Innes
Larousse Encyclopedia of Astrology
The House of Dr Dee - Peter Ackroyd (1% challenge)
The Woman in Black - Susan Hill
Alive Together - Lisel Mueller (fairy-tale poetry)
Letters From Maine - May Sarton (poetry)
The Gift - Lewis Hyde
The Famished Road - Ben Okri (1% challenge)
The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch (1% challenge)
Don't Look Back - Karin Fossum
The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood
Fire Logic - Laurie J. Marks'
Wolf Moon - Charles de Lint
Tales of HOrror and the Supernatural, vol 2 - Arthur Machen
Memory and Dream - Charles de Lint


2) Book Bazaar #2 pile
Odd Thomas - Dean Koontz
The Sword of Maiden's Tears - Rosemary Edgehill
Red Moon and Black Mountain - Joy Chant
Ill Wind - Rachel Caine
The Unicorn Creed - Elizabeth Scarborough
Song of Sorcery - Elizabeth Scarborough
On Stranger Tides - Tim Powers
Summer King, Winter Fool - Lisa Goldstein
Black Oak, Winter Knight - Charles Grant
The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle
The Folk of the Air - Peter S. Beagle
The Red Magician - Lisa Goldstein
Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood


3) Odds and Ends picked up over the last month (mostly second-hand stores)
The Raven Ring - Patricia C. Wrede
Oxford Proof - Veronica Stallwood
A Poultice for a Healer - Caroline Roe
The Summer Tree - Guy Gavriel Kay
So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish - Douglas Adams
The Goose Girl - Shannon Hale
Sister Light, Sister Dark - Jane Yolen
The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
Fool Moon (#2 Harry Dresden series) - Jim Butcher
The Trouble with Magic - Madeline Alt
The Optimist's Daughter - Eudora Welty
Mrs Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing - May Sarton (novel)
Mistletoe Man - Susan Wittig Albert
Skin Tight - Carl Hiassen
Kindergarten - P.S Rushforth *** I have been looking for this one for years!!
Possession - A.S. Byatt (1% challenge)

4) Book exchange at my friend's fundraiser:
Sharkwater - Rob Stewart
Random Passage - Bernice Morgan (2nd Canadian Book Challenge this July)
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister - Gregory Maguire
Tainted Blood - Arnaldur Indridason
On Beauty - Zadie Smith (1% challenge)
A Breach of Promise (Anne Perry)
Cold is the Grave - Peter Robinson
Dragonflight - Anne McCaffrey

The last two pictures are of one of my birthday presents, that is already a prize possession. DA is Connie Willis' newest science fiction book. It is published by Subterranean Press, whom Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings mentioned in one of his posts mentioned during his recent Book Week ; DA is published by Subterranean. What I didn't know was, the copy I was ordering through my favourite independent bookstore, Collected Works, was going to be in hardcover. And when I opened up the book, imagine my delight - awe - the magical moment when I realized I was holding a signed copy by the author! A limited edition! I'm still kind of in awe - not that it is signed, but that it is signed and a limited edition! By one of my favourite authors! So this is one of the best presents of this birthday today. The others I will mention tomorrow, but for now I have to go get some beauty sleep, so I hope you enjoyed looking at all my treasures. I have felt slightly guilty at buying so many at once - mostly because to be able to buy books in anything more than 2 at a time, is a luxury still, even though we can afford it, I try to be reasonable. For once, I threw caution to the winds this month, and you know what? I was so happy coming out of Book Bazaar with my load of books! Many are ones I've read but lost over the years so I am replacing, and some are ones I've been looking for a long time. It's a once in a year kind of shopping trip, I think, and it was sooo fun!!



The very best thing about my birthday? My daughter told everyone at her daycare and class it was my birthday, and made her daycare teacher make a card, so Holly-Anne could write her name on the inside and give it to me! That, and the DA book, of course!!

Weekly Geeks #4

So, here we are, week 4. Dewey's plan for this week: This week’s theme: Choose a political or social issue that matters to you. Find several books addressing that issue; they don’t have to books you’ve read, just books you might like to read. Using images (of the book covers or whatever you feel illustrates your topic) present these books in your blog.

I've given this alot of thought, and I've decided I don't want to get on my many bandwagons. I have a lot of opinions, some of which I have aired here over the past months; the main thing is, I join what I believe in. I was a member of Greenpeace for years, I was an anti-nuclear war activist, I joined the Western Wilderness Committee (protecting the virgin rain forests of BC), World Wild Life, I've marched on Parliament Hill in support of Aboriginal rights, I've practiced recycling, reducing and reusing since before it was cool, and I try to eat foods grown in my area when possible. You get the idea, I try to do what I believe in. All this to say, I discovered that I don't own many books about nuclear war, the environment, etc, partly because of my many moves, partly because I didn't buy many so much as act. So I thought about Dewey's proposition for this week, and I realized I didn't want to try to convince anyone of why I believe what I do. I think Dewey wants us to show what we care about through books. So, I've decided to present four books I own, that are about different things that I care about. Two of which I've read cover to cover, one I've dipped into, and one I have to still read:

1. The Whale Watcher's Handbook - Erich Hoyt. (sorry, there is no picture on Amazon or on Library Thing!)
2. The World's Whales - The Complete Illustrated Guide - Stanley Minasian, Kenneth Balcomb III, Larry Foster

The first two books are from my early twenties. That is when I was joining Greenpeace because of the whales. I have always loved whales, and when I lived on our sailboat in the mid-1970's, my sister and I were privileged to have a gray whale slide by our boat while in California. We arrived there in the middle of Whale week, where they had films, and library displays, and boat rides (which we didn't go on!). This was my introduction to whales, and I was 13 years old. We never saw another one on the boat. We did however almost constantly have porpoises and dolphins swimming with our boat, especially when we were sailing, and one of my first poems I ever wrote was about the dolphins! When I discovered that dolphins were being killed by the tuna fishnets, I didn't eat tuna for many, many years, and even now, I struggle to eat it. I know they have dolphin-friendly nets, but I know other sealife get caught, and I despair over the right thing to do. Uh-oh, sorry, I did not want this to get depressing!
Anyway, the first book is about whale-watching - where to go, in the world, although I bought it because it was marketed for Canada. Then, in 1984, whale watching wasn't the enormous business it is now. This book provides coastal beaches and lookouts, tours back then, illustrations and photos. I'm sure this book has been updated by now, but since I don't live by the ocean I won't update it yet!

Oh- and you know what? The whales come when they want to. I say this because one day in early spring, while I lived out west in Nanaimo BC - 1984-1985, my then boyfriend and I went for a drive to the west side of Vancouver Island, to Tofino. While at the beach, a whale jumped out of the water!! A gray whale, beginning its migration south, had stopped in the bay. The beach was deserted, and my boyfriend missed it, but I watched that whale jump and it was beautiful.
The second book was a gift for my 21st birthday from my mother, who thought I should have a special book to celebrate. This is my ultimate resource book, one I have turned to many times for the pictures, for descriptions and habits.

I have owned other books on whales, but when I was paring down in 2000 in preparation for moving to England, I found I couldn't part with these two.

3.The Simple Living Guide - Janet Luhrs
This is billed as 'A Sourcebook for Less Stressful, More Joyful Living'. It came out in 1997. I got this from a friend who was part of the living more simpling movement (before it caught on). When I want to de-stress, or look at simpler ways to celebrate things - or to reassure myself that I am not crazy because I don't need to change my wardrobe every season! and buy the newest tvs and dvd players etc just because they are new - this is the book I turn to. It is relaxing to read, and comforting. We can live with less, but we don't have to do without. We just have to learn to invest better in quality that will last. For instance, for those of us who are parents, this book talks about the decision to enroll our children in lessons for everything vs free time. Well, in case you haven't guessed, my eldest got enrolled in swimming lessons, and joined scouts, and that was it. The rest of the time was for him to play with his friends, do homework, and our time. My youngest children are being raised the same way; I believe in free unstructured time, because I think play is so important in growing up. I don't want my kids to feel more stressed than they need to. That will come soon enough, as they grow older. This book is filled with ways to celebrate holidays, work, money, time, families, all from the perspective of living more simply so we have time to do what we enjoy. One of my favourite books to ground myself in.

4. Faster - James Gleick. I haven't read this book yet. It's on my TBR pile. It is about the acceleration of modern day life, our obsession with speed and making things go faster - and yes, I am someone who pushes that elevator door when it doesn't close fast enough!! I think this is a character flaw, though! I will always find them slow......Again, it looks fascinating. This is what Publisher's Weekly on Amazon had to say: 'From Publishers Weekly
Technological advances in time measurement and time-saving devices have been fueled by the ever-quickening pace of our lives. Or is it the other way around? Gleick, twice nominated for the National Book Award (for Chaos: Making a New Science and Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman), offers a refreshingly contrarian view of the notion of time management and of the instantaneity ("instant coffee, instant intimacy, instant replay, and instant gratification") of everyday life. Many of us exhibit what doctors and sociologists call "hurry sickness" - arriving, for example, at an airport gate at the last possible minute - an obsession ironically matched by endless waits on expressways and runways. "Gridlocked and Tarmacked are metonyms of our era," writes Gleick, "...to be stuck in place, our fastest engines idling all around us, as time passes and blood pressures rise." This paradox, and the "simultaneous fragmentation and overloading of human attention" that results, he contends, can be traced to a wide variety of everyday conveniences: microwaves and automatic dishwashers, express mail, beeper medicine, television remote control, even speed-dialing telephones ("Investing a half-hour in learning to program them is like advancing a hundred dollars to buy a year's supply of light bulbs at a penny discount"). Funny and irreverent, Gleick pinpoints the dilemma underlying many of today's technological improvements: that time-saving now comes more from "the tautening net of efficiency" than from raw speed, meaning that any snag in the system - whether a disabled airliner or one or two drivers unaccountably hitting the brake - can spread delay and confusion throughout the network. Paradoxically, too, the increasing pace and efficiency of our lives leads not to leisure and relaxation but to increased boredom: "a backwash within another mental state, the one called mania." This is a book to be studied... slowly.


Doesn't that sound interesting?

Anyway, thanks to Dewey, because I've revisited two of my favourite books on whales doing this and relived some happy memories :-)

By the way, one book that I do recommend (that I don't currently own) is Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, the classic book in environmentalism that started the general realization that what we put into the environment affects everything. This is the book that was a revelation for me, because I didn't really know about DDT and Agent Orange; the effects these have had on the natural world and for Agent Orange, still being felt in the military here in Canada, were astounding. I am still surprised when I meet people who don't understand that if we spray crops, where does the spray end up? In our food, and so eventually, in us. Same with mercury, and so many other toxins in our environment. Bug sprays around the house - poison to everything, not just ants and flies. I still live by this philosophy. I've never read this book all the way through, but I think it's time I got myself a copy again. I'd like to see how far we've come, and look to see how far we still have to go. Oops, there I go again. And I think, as the aboriginal people say, we are responsible for how we leave the earth to our children. What we do affects our children to the 7th generation from now. Anyway, I wanted to show what I care about, not preach, so I'll just go out and put my natural fertilizer around my rose and marigolds around the garden to stop the slugs......

Tomorrow is my birthday, so I am going to stop and - can't smell the roses, too early in the year - talk a long walk among the green trees and see what birds have arrived now that spring has finally arrived. Happy reading, everyone! Tomorrow I get to open all those lovely books I've bought for my husband and children to give me, too!!!

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

It has been many years since I last read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I picked it for the Banned Books Challenge so I could re-read it again. I am so glad I did. In a mere 179 pages - mere considering the enormous tomes that come out now in trilogies and 7 book series - Ray Bradbury reminded me of what science fiction is at its heart. We look into the future, and we are shown a possibility, a world that could be.

Fahrenheit 451 looks into a future for our world, and shows us a terrible world that is even more creepy because we are on our way to becoming that world. If we burn one book, if we allow the freedom to ban books, to ban thinking and remembering, which is what books are, then what is the result? Fahrenheit 451 shows us that result. This book is a chilling look at a future that we are on our way to having, and that is the worst thing about it. How can we not have learned anything in the last 60 years since this book was first published? How did Bradbury imagine we would have reality tv, barely-there earphones that keep us plugged in to our own music, or the radio, so all the time we are surrounded by sound? And, of course, the book banning. Whereas I can't figure out why Inkheart would be banned, I know why this book would be considered, which is ironic.

So what is there in Fahrenheit 451 to be afraid of? On top of everything listed above, there is the sound of the 'war' in the background of this novel. Periodically the news will mention briefly that another war has been launched, and every night or morning, it's a daily thing - Guy Montag (the hero) and the rest of the city shudders under the sound of the jets flying over head. Or they would shudder, if they weren't numbed by tv and the audio shells. It's always in the background, and no countries are named, and it's over by nightfall. It's so constant that no one talks about it, no one wonders. And I began to think of our own current day, with our current war-that-is-not-war in Iraq. Unlike the US, we have never declared war openly on Iraq. We simply went to war to fight the insurgents, one day. There was never any debate in our House of Commons, and we are over there not under the arm of the UN, nor really as colleagues of the US, even though we are supporting the US war on terrorism. It is very strange, and I can't quite figure out how we are supposed to know we have won when 'the enemy' is not something you can crush - we all know that idealogy can't be wiped out even if you destroy its army. And Fahrenheit 451 is about the numbness that people in general feel when they stop thinking, when they accept what they are told without question. Have you noticed how the news about the war in Iraq is changing? Here in Canada, we no longer here about the bombing errors, we only hear about the occasional 'successful' raid, and about every casualty our army suffers. We don't have to put up with George Bush's rhetoric, thank heavens, because he is terrifying and has made this war numbing to hear about. For the rest of us back here it is numbing, not for the men and women of so many countries (some under the UN banner) who are out there in Iraq, fighting, and in Afghanistan (where we are based), 'restoring peace' I think is what we are officially doing. For them, the war is real. And for their sakes as well as ours, we owe it to remember, and to recognize that our governments don't want us thinking very hard about this war. Fahrenheit 451 is about that numbing, so that no one knows and no one questions anything anymore. And while I hear promises that one day we will all be out of Iraq, I don't hear any active discussion, debate, no active dissent any more. No one seems to have an opinion, or if they do, it is quickly hushed up. And that is the future that Bradbury envisioned, the numbing of the freedom to think, which becomes the numbing of the ability to act. So this book is as relevant as it was when it was first published 60 years ago.

Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which books begin to burn. Guy Montag is the hero, the fireman who wears 451 on his hat, signifying he is a fireman who sets books and houses on fire. Among the many horrors of this book is the fact history is being rewritten - according to the fireman's rule book, Benjamin Franklin in 1790 was the first fireman! To burn 'English-influenced books in the colonies'. Books can rewrite history, and the winners write that history. So they can't be all true. So what is so frightening about them? If one book can say one thing,and another the opposite? If history is rewritten, so what came before is changed again? Why is this important? It's because books carry the history of what people did before.
Or, as Granger, one of the characters we meet near the end of the book says:
" But even when we had the books on hand, a long time ago, we didn't use what we got out of them. We went right on insulting the dead. We went right on spitting in the graves of all the poor ones who died before us. We're going to meet a lot of lonely people in the next week and the next month and the next year. And when they ask us what we're doing, you can say, We're remembering. That's where we'll win out in the long run. And someday we'll remember so much that we'll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up."

In case you think this book is dark and terrifying - which it is, in places - there is also love and hope and friends. Guy discovers he is not alone, in hiding books, in questioning what they are living, their life. He can't remember simple things like where he met his wife Mildred. It is a terrifying world where no one connects except those who ask questions, but then they become dangerous because they don't accept the status quo. Where teenagers race to see who survives the night, because they don't care, and everyone accepts this fact. Where Mildred his wife tries to kill herself, and then is given a memory-wipe pill after she is saved, so the next day she has no idea what her husband is talking about. That underlying despair that everyone tries to cover up with noise. One of the most memorable characters is Clarisse McClellan, who he meets at the beginning of the novel. She is a teenager, and acts as his muse:
"I sometimes think drivers don't know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly," she said. "If you showed a driver a green blur, Oh yes! he'd say, that's grass! A pink blur? That's a rose garden. White blurs are houses. Brown blurs are cows. My uncle drove slowly on the highway once. He drove forty miles an hour and they jailed him for two days. Isn't that funny, and sad, too?"
"You think too many things," said Montag, uneasily.
"I rarely watch the 'parlor walls' or go to races or Fun Parks. So I've lots of time for crazy thoughts, I guess. Have you seen the two hundred-foot-long billboards in the country beyond town? Did you know once that billboards were only twenty feet long? But cars started rushing by so quickly they had to stretch the advertising out so it would last."
"I didn't know that!" Montag laughed abruptly.
"Bet I know something else you don't. There's dew on the grass in the morning."

He lives in a world in which television has become interactive walls in your house, where you can have three - ultimately 4 - walls in the 'tv parlor' which are set with your name, so when the announcer of the game shows or tv reality shows announce your name - because you've paid for the subscription price, of course - you feel like part of the 'family'. Where you wear audio SeaShells every other moment, or, when on public transit, ads are blasted at you. Mildred wants the 4th wall so she can lose herself entirely in the tv family. Of course, Montag has realized that the tv isn't real, and the family isn't real. But his wife doesn't want to see it. So when Clarisse starts talking to him, all the simmering unconscious questions he has suddenly surface.

Fahrenheit 451 is about one man's awakening, and how he escapes. It is chilling, yes, especially the ending - and I don't want to give it away, so I can't say more, but it is so amazing and powerful it is breathtaking, it is stunning, and also full of hope. Most of all, against all the horrors of a world gone mad with numbness, Bradbury shows the way out: Pay attention. Ask why. Read. Remember. If the book begins with acts of destruction, it ends with what we should be doing:
"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away."

This is a powerful novel. I hope you get to read it one day, Gentle Reader, if you have not read it yet. This is one of those necessary books to read, I think.

Other people's posts - and please, if you have reviewed this or any book I have posted about, send me your link and I will add it (thanks!):
Chris at Book-A-Rama
3M
Rhinoa
Joanna (Lost in A Good Story)
Teddy (So Many Books)
Nymeth

Weekly Geeks #3 and Emily of New Moon

Dewey has put as this week's challenge, that we write about our fond memories of our childhood books. I will do a longer post about my favourites while growing up, but for today, I thought I'd combine a post about one of my favourite books as a child with a review of it for the Canadian Book Challenge.
Emily of New Moon is by Lucy Maud Montgomery, one of the most famous Canadian authors we have ever produced. The Emily books consist of three books: Emily of New Moon, Emily Climbs, and Emily's Quest. They cover her ages from 10 to around 18 (I think. I don't have a copy of Emily's Quest on hand to check. But she is able to support herself at the end of the books!) While Emily Starr and LM Montgomery's more famous character Anne Shirley of Green Gables share flights of fancy, strong characterization, and wonderful settings, where they differ is that Emily knows from almost the beginning that she is going to be a writer. I loved Anne, but just as much I loved Emily Starr and her books. Emily was the first character I met, as a child, who knew they were going to be a writer when they grew up. Harriet the Spy was a spy (even though she wrote), and everyone else I read were either going to be nurses or teachers. Emily had to write, and part of the delight of her books is seeing her developing writing skill - we get to read her childish poetry, her first letters to her dead father, her growing sense of how to use words to capture the magic of the landscape around her.

As always, the book is set in PEI, but nearer the water - Blair Water is the nearest village, and New Moon is the name of the family farm that Emily comes to live at, after her parents die. She lives with her middle-aged single aunts, Elizabeth and Laura, and Cousin Jimmy (who is really her uncle), who had an accident as a child and is considered 'simple' as a result. Emily of New Moon is about Emily and her relatives getting to know one another, much as Anne and Marilla and Matthew in Anne of Green Gables spend the first book getting to know each other as well. At the end of Emily of New Moon, like Anne of GG, Emily knows she is going to stay - she and Aunt Elizabeth have reached a kind of understanding of each other, and recognize the importance of the other in their lives. Again, much like Anne and Marilla. But there the similarity really ends. While both are series of children, Anne is in love with the world around her, and the books are about her adventures as she grows up. Emily is focused on writing early, and so what we see is PEI through the eyes of writer. This means Emily wonders from an early age about why people are the way they are, and she has an eye for seeing the truth of people that comes out delightfully in her descriptions that she either thinks to herself, or writes. There is the requisite best friend - in this book, Ilse is the neglected one and nearly as magnetic in personality as Emily, unlike the slightly wimpy and so sweet Diana of Green Gables, and early on the boys show a definite liking for Emily. She is magnetic, and affects everyone around her, and they react to her just as strongly. This is a fascinating study of people, and I never tire of Montgomery's amazing ability to capture a person with just a few words. In this book also, Emily and her friends are going to be someone when they grow up - Emily a writer, Teddy a painter, Ilse a speaker, and Perry the premier of the province. It is fun to see these dynamic characters become friends, and how they relate to one another as they grow up.

Emily is a character who her father says 'loves deeply' and feels things passionately, which gives the novel its momentum and makes the book almost unputdownable. In fact, I know have to go and buy the next two in the series so I can finish it soon! Emily has a temper also, and this lands her in trouble. The difference is that Anne tries to be good, whereas Emily tries to be right. Daily life is described in detail on the New Moon farm. One interesting thing I discovered, was that my reading earlier this year of The Settler's Handbook by Catherine Parr Traill, gave me the knowledge to see New Moon clearly for the first time - Aunt Elizabeth is old-fashioned, so as Jimmy says when they arrive, the farm is farmed '50 years back', which sets it around 1850-1860. There was the dairy room, where the milk was skimmed and cream lifted, there was the larder, the cook room set away from the main kitchen. It was fascinating to read about the ice house, and to be able to understand that Montgomery was writing about a real farm, as it was in Canada at that time period. And, I imagined the scene Emily describes, as something I would have found at my own great-great-grandparents farm in southern Ontario!

This book is sweet and funny, and terribly moving. I don't know what it is about L.M. Montgomery's writing, but she can make me cry and laugh in almost the same moment. Imagine my horror when last week, reading Emily of New Moon on the bus, I found myself crying as her father dies!!! And I was very glad that I read the last part of the book at home, in which Emily nearly dies and solves a long-standing mystery in an uncanny way of her own. I wept and wondered that I, 44 years old, could cry over a children's book that I know almost by heart! But that is the beauty and wonder of Lucy Maud Montgomery's writing, for me.

If you haven't read about Emily of New Moon yet, then I highly recommend this book. I love it as much now as I did as a child. And yes, I'm still trying to be a writer! So in its quiet way, this book is encouragement for anyone who has a dream.