What's Elizabeth Reading? ...Louise Murphy

So it turns out I lied about finding a happy book to read. I went to the library all set on reading a particular happy book, but then the library didn't have it and the book I wanted to read most instead was set in Nazi-occupied Poland. And the main characters are Jewish children. On the plus side, it did have a happy ending!

Louise Murphy's The True Story of Hansel and Gretel first stood out to me because of the title. I wanted to know what angle Murphy was using to retell this story, so I looked at the book description, where I found out that Murphy's concept was brilliant: "In the last months of the Nazi occupation of Poland, two children are left by their father and stepmother to find safety in a dense forest. Because their real names will reveal their Jewishness, they are renamed 'Hansel' and 'Gretel.' They wander in the woods until they are taken in by Magda, an eccentric and stubborn old woman called 'witch' by the nearby villagers" (from the back cover).

So I had to read the book. I wanted to see how Louise Murphy would pull it off--and it turned out she did so with skill. There is a trail of breadcrumbs, Gretel is placed in a cage at one point, there is food on the outside of Magda's hut, and (I read this bit before, but I can't remember where) Magda ends up in an oven. Nuances of the original story I wasn't even familiar with--the children were carried on a swan? Really?--are included in this adaptation, and the writing was good enough to support it. I was rarely distracted from the story by weird wording or poor storytelling.

I do need to warn you that this book is not for kids, at least not in the G or PG mindset. There are Nazis, and they aren't softened at all. Gretel is raped twice in a row (two men caught her alone in the woods), we watch Jews die in the showers, the language is not always clean, and there is quite a bit of graphic carnage.

To me, it felt like Murphy was just being honest when she included these things. The story would have felt fake without them (which makes me wonder about The Sound of Music and how nothing truly bad happens in it...). However, this is not a story about the war or the Holocaust; that is just the setting Murphy uses. Don't expect a history lesson while reading.

FYI: I gave this book four out of five stars on Goodreads. That's because although it was incredible, I didn't feel like it reached masterpiece level. It is still just a story. For me, 1 = bad book, 2 = okay, 3 = good, 4 = exceptional, 5 = masterpiece.

That said...

The story of Hansel and Gretel may have been first told long before WWII, but this book made it feel like the story was meant to take place in Poland during that time. It was that well done.

Lorenzo

The mind is a muscle, they said, and it needs to be exercised like one. So Lorenzo dutifully went to school every day, where they handed him a packet the moment he walked in the door. He would sit with his back against the wall, pull out his pencil, and do the Sudokus first, because they were his favorite. Then he did the logic puzzles about baseball players and rows of brightly painted houses, but if he got bored doing that he would take a rest and read a couple of the articles that were in the back. You had to read them all and answer the important questions afterward, like “Who was the man who figured out how to fix the computer?” and “Write down the names of all the breeds of trees mentioned above.” When he was through with the packet, he could give it back and go home. If he fell asleep, that just meant he was there for longer, so he always did his best to stay awake, even though it was hard sometimes.

At some point, Lorenzo got bored of the packets. He wanted to read big people things, like the magazines his uncle was always reading. They could probably tell he was bored, because the next week, he was told to go to a different room, where they would have a different packet for him. The new packet had some Sudokus in the front still, probably because they knew he liked them, but also some how-to articles, about fixing cars and putting TVs together. He had to raise his hand to ask for some help understanding some of it, because he had never seen the inside of a TV before, and they stood talking in the corner about it for a minute. During that minute, Lorenzo examined the new room. The walls were all white, with one blue wall that had a clock on it. And there were bean bags with kids sitting in them and a couple red and brown rugs on the floor. It was the first time he couldn’t remember what the first room looked like. He’d never really looked at it. And that was weird. Really weird.

They were taking a long time talking. He looked at the boy on the bean bag nearby and tried to see what he was reading, but the angle wasn’t good. So he stood up and walked behind him to look, but even then he couldn’t read it because the spelling was all messed up.

“What’re you reading?” he asked, still trying to find a word, even just one, that he could read.

The boy looked back at him and said something that he didn’t understand, and he wondered if the boy was one of those people who didn’t exercise their mind enough and so they were having to start over or something. He walked away from the boy.

They were done talking in the corner and were looking at him, so he walked over to where they stood and asked, “Is that boy on the bean bag chair someone who is stupid?”

They shushed him and glanced at the boy in the corner, then put an arm around his shoulder and took him out of that room, even though his pencil was still in there and it was his only pencil. They gave him a screwdriver instead. He knew what they looked like because his uncle had one.

“We’re going to show you the inside of a TV so you can understand what you are reading,” they said.

“Will it take a long time?”

“You can go home once you finish that part of the packet,” they said. “It shouldn’t take too long.”

“Okay.”

That was the day Lorenzo found out the insides of TVs look weird.





Is there a point to this particular longer-than-a-paragraph fiction? Does there need to be a point? I felt like I had a point at the beginning: I was playing around with an educational system and society that does not prize critical thinking -- or knowledge, even. But as it went on, it turned out that Lorenzo was not as interested as I was in making a point. He resisted fighting the system. So I didn't force him to, because it felt wrong.

It is a story. And no, it doesn't really have a point. A lot of people think that stories should have a point. Even more people think that poetry should have a point. I'd like to ask why. Can't it just be a story? Can't I write a poem that is just about how much I love vanilla ice cream, without any sort of agenda? And once it is written, does its value lie in its ability to make a point, its ability to sound profound? I reserve the right to write without trying to inject it with an agenda of any sort. The point is to enjoy it. Find a lesson if you want, but I'm not going to try to teach one.

What's Elizabeth Reading? ...George Orwell

Until this month, I had never read George Orwell's 1984. It has been on my to-read list for a long time, mainly because it's one of those books that everyone seems to have been forced to read in high school and therefore can allude to and joke about. The book is a part of America's culture at this point, and I had never read it. So I finally pushed it to the top of my to-read list (meaning it was available at the library and thus I didn't have an excuse to get out of it).

If you haven't listened to any TED talks, you
need to do that ASAP. They are incredible, as a rule.

For the fun of it, here are some things (and people) that were released or born in 1984, for real: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic books, Tetris, The Cosby Show, Mark Zuckerberg, Scarlett Johansson, LeBron James (with whom I share birthdays, it turns out), Mandy Moore, the Mac, TED, Ghostbusters.

It isn't news that the real 1984 was much different from Orwell's. Orwell's 1984 idolizes hatred, violence, and betrayal. War is constant, and sex is frowned upon, love even more so. I was about halfway through the book when I knew for certain that it wasn't going to have a happy ending. I was hoping for bittersweet, but it turns out I didn't get that, either.

I was also about halfway through the book when I decided 1984 was Orwell's way of sneaking an essay on class theory into the fiction section. I'm not exaggerating; there is a good chunk of pages in the middle where the main character is reading what amounts to two essays on class theory, and the reader gets to read along. There is little to no plot or movement going on while these essays are read.

What I mean by "class theory" = how society's high, middle, and low classes interact.

The essays are interesting, and strange as it may sound, the book started being a faster read once I reached them. In my opinion, those essays are the point of the book. The rest of it is supportive material, an illustration of what the essays are talking about so as to drill it into our minds.

When the book described what Big Brother's face looked like,
I felt like it was describing Stalin. So that's who I imagined.

Aside from that, this is an exposition-heavy book. Most of what happens is inside the main character's mind. Besides having a lengthy affair and vowing to undermine the Party (the government, in essence), he does not do much of anything. I suppose this is fine because this book is about an idea, not a story. Be prepared for that if you choose to read it.

Do I think Orwell has a valid point? I think that even if he did, it would take centuries, not decades, to happen.

I also think that even if it were to happen, at some point--and it may well take millenia--the government would grow comfortable and make the smallest of mistakes. That mistake would start a chain reaction that would end in that government being overthrown.

My last thought that I'll share is that the Party would need a leader. It has Big Brother, but Big Brother is a myth, the face of the Party, not an actual leader. The world has the Inner Party, or what would equate to the high class, but as far as the reader knows, that is as high up as it gets. But someone needs to be organizing and overseeing everything if it is to flow smoothly. Left to their own devices, the Inner Party members would start working on conflicting projects that could mean the downfall of the Party. Someone has to be in charge, and that someone--singular, because they would have to be against sharing their power--has to be a psychopath who is absolutely aware of exactly what he or she is doing. Think The Joker.

This all said, I'm going to the library today to pick up a happier book.

Death Rattle Writer's Festival, Dead Geese, and Old People

I attended an Open Mic reading for the Death Rattle Writer’s Festival in Nampa Friday evening just before I went to work, which actually means I only went to part of it. There are some oh-so-glorious parts of working an evening shift (not graveyard; I still sleep at night), and one of those is that people like to schedule fun things in the evenings because they assume that’s when people don’t have work. Oh well.

The Festival was a two-day thing, and while I wish I could have gone to more events, I’ll take what I can get. I also wanted to read some of my paragraph fiction, since it’s like pocket-sized prose, perfect for an Open Mic, but it turns out they had a sign up beforehand. Again, oh well.

So I got to listen to three people read their work, and I was surprised and pleased with the quality (does that mean I’m cynical? Yes). The first was a short story about a widower who has fallen in love with his daughter’s bus driver without knowing her name or ever talking to her. The second person read some poems, one of which was about how she startled a goose and it died by running into a telephone pole or wire, she wasn’t sure which. Her other poems were a bit more nostalgic and thoughtful in content, and she managed to bring that goose around to being philosophical; but it still says something that it’s the goose I remember, not the profundity she was going for (note: create fantastic images in your writing, because that’s what will stick out).

The third reader read a short story about this old woman who has fallen and broken her hip, and she spends the bulk of the story trying to get through to her Alzheimer’s-stricken husband, asking him to bring her the phone so she can call 9-1-1. That last story was the one that captured me the most from the Open Mic. I would have to reread all the pieces to know if the writing had anything to do with it, but I feel like the reason is that it was, to me, a new aspect on a familiar part of life. It was a tragedy, and one that wears normal clothes, making it even more tragic. This could be happening somewhere right now, and the possibility had never crossed my mind until Friday. I hope that story goes somewhere.

Perhaps this idea stuck out because it was so well illustrated by the image assigned to it. The dead goose stuck out because of the imagery alone, but then the poet philosophized and I have forgotten whatever concept she was trying to convey, leaving me with a dead goose and nothing more.

Jacques Derrida: Literary philosopher, deconstructionist.
Fun name to throw out if you feel like being hipster.

The woman with the broken hip, though, naturally portrayed an idea all on her own, so when I remember the image, the idea comes naturally with it. The writer did not have to explicitly state the idea anywhere in the story, and there was absolutely no stretching going on for the sake of making a point. Jacques Derrida once philosophized about how “the center is not the center.” I think this goes in that category. The story was so much about how this is a familiar tragedy that it didn’t have to even acknowledge the dead horse, much less beat it. The audience knew the horse was there just the same.

I wish I could put an excerpt from the story here so you could see what I mean. I’m kind of floundering here trying to explain it.

Lesson from today: A well-told story containing strong imagery can embody an idea that sticks (if the audience is receptive to it). Imagery that merely connects with an idea is a dead goose; if you wanted to eat goose, though, that’s just fine. Sometimes a story can be just that: a story.

I can feel a literary term being born here. “Dead goose”: an image that transcends the idea a writer has tried to attach to it.

What's Elizabeth Reading? ...Frank Herbert

I didn't hear about Frank Herbert's Dune until I was in college. One of my professors compared society's obsession with Harry Potter to his obsession for Dune years before. I guess that registered as a pretty high recommendation for me, because it's been on my I-should-read-this list ever since.

It has been said that Dune is the greatest science fiction novel ever written. This makes me question the definition of science fiction, since I see it as more of a fantasy novel. I found a website that looks into it, and the website says science fiction has the following characteristics:

Who knew a worm could be
such a fearsome creature? Well done,
Mr. Herbert. Well done.

• human species encounters change
• focuses on ideas, sometimes at the expense of plot or character
• interdisciplinary, involving more than one branch of learning (history and math, for example)
• provides an approach to understanding
• carries experiments through that we wouldn't actually want to perform so the consequences are discovered and examined
• alternative point of view, representing someone or something we are not

All of that said, is Dune science fiction? Human species encounters change -- well, there is a breeding program, I suppose, and they also have to test people to see whether they are human or humanoid. Focuses on ideas -- This is one of the areas where I have a bit of a problem. The book spent much more time building its concept (desert planet) and less time building ideas applicable outside the book. After looking it up, it seems Herbert was addressing superheroes and their effect on society. Paul, the protagonist, begins the story as a young boy who is largely carefree. He ends the book by marrying for political reasons in a bid for the throne, worshiped by those around him and willing to kill for mixed reasons. So yes, there is a downward spiral. I had never considered science fiction as looking at the science of a person's personal growth. It is an intriguing concept.

There is some science, and I liked how Herbert took an idea to an extreme -- lack of water extended to the point that people are literally harvesting dew and draining blood from dead bodies so the water is preserved. It turned from science fiction in that magic was introduced. People take a drug and can then carry the memories of all who came before them. Others are trained to have superhuman analytic abilities. If you use certain tones of voice, you can control other people. All that stuff is not explained scientifically and goes under the "magic" umbrella, for me.

But this is all about the label the book has gained. I have a feeling Herbert was not really concerned about genre while he was writing this book. One thing he was obviously aware of and careful with was his use of foils. This book is full of marvelous parallels that are strong yet do not shout their presence.

A "foil" is an aspect of a story used for the sake of comparison. If everyone can fly around the world so fast the Earth stops spinning, then Superman becomes much less super. His abilities become normal. Every book that features characters with superhuman abilities needs to have characters without those abilities so the reader can have a standard to compare them to. Just because they are special compared to the real world does not immediately make them special in their own, and readers want the characters to be special in their own worlds.

I did not imagine this
character as looking like
Patrick Stewart, FYI.

Paul has many foils, each for another aspect of his existence. Another noble boy his age is used to compare him to his peers. One of his father's trusted officials is used in place of his actual father, showing how he grows away from that standard. The leader of the people who populate the desert planet represents that people and how Paul changes them. It really would make quite the chart if one felt like writing out every foil in the book. Even the desert planet has foils in comparison with the planet they recently left and with the emperor's prison planet. Everything in this book has something to directly compare it with. This allows us to understand more, making each aspect more three-dimensional. It is brilliantly done.

It took me awhile to get used to reading this book, so I was a number of chapters in before I started thinking that I was reading an awesome book. In a way, Herbert has broken literary rules. "Free-indirect discourse" is what it is called when a story is told in the third person but one character's thoughts and experience are focused on. For instance, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice tells most of the story through Elizabeth. Authors tend to choose one point of view for the entire book or else they switch between characters at breaks in the story. Herbert switched points of view every few paragraphs. Sometimes it was nearly every other paragraph, in fact. It took quite some time to get used to, and it was a bit jarring. It also had interesting side effects in that we saw the story through the eyes of the villains and knew just who the traitor was many pages before the others did, because the traitor was thinking about it often. We even got to see a conversation between someone thinking, "This person could never be the traitor" and the traitor thinking, "I wish I wasn't a traitor, but it's the only way." We swapped between the two views multiple times throughout the conversation.

Dune was a good book. Really. It was just a bit different in the style it's written in and the way it is approaching science fiction. The story itself is well done and worth a read.