Hello! (This Musical Won't Change Your Life!) Thoughts on the Book of Mormon

Friends! How go things with you?

Life has, of late, not left a whole lot of brain power for writing, so posts have been necessarily sporadic. But last week my good friend Artemis (she of the Thor/Loki/Fandom conversation) asked me to come along with her to see Book of Mormon, and after we’d discussed it a long while on the way back to the train station, she said, “So, you do realize you have to write a blog post on this now, don’t you?”

Well, she did pay for my ticket, so yes, I do have to write a blog post on it now.

Let me preface this by saying that Book of Mormon is not a musical I would have elected to go see by myself. I’m not a fan of South Park or the particular brand of humor on that show, and I’m not really crazy about Mormons,  and I’m really, really not a fan of making fun of anyone’s religion. Pretty much I was going because I had the next day off and my friend had a ticket. So I went.

And, surprisingly, I kind of enjoyed myself.  For those of you who, like myself, have not been bothered with Book of Mormon, let me give you a summary.

The musical opens with a class full of eager young Mormons who are finishing up their missionary formation and going to do their required two years of missionary service. (As an aside, this is pretty much the only song in the show I absolutely loved. Here, let’s listen.)

We meet Elder Price, who’s kind of the ‘spit shined shoes, gets everything right, teacher’s pet’ type, and Elder Cunningham, who’s kind of…not that type. Elder Price is really hoping he gets assigned to his dream post, Orlando, Florida, and Elder Cunningham is just excited that he gets to go somewhere and maybe make a friend. As you’ve probably guessed, for the requisite comic element, these two characters get paired together to do their missionary service in Uganda, which Elder Price is less than thrilled about. The audience sees the families of these two young men saying goodbye at the airport, giving some sense of how they turned out the way they did, and then, after some clever scene changes and less than memorable songs, they arrive in Uganda.

There’s a very famous piece of writing often taught in Post Colonial Literature classes called “How to Write About Africa” by Binyavanga Wainaina, in which Wainaina points out all of the accepted tropes or stereotypes western authors use to talk about Africa. (One of those tropes being that you can always just talk about Africa as a big mass, because, as all men of learning know, Africa has no internal distinctions, cultural boundaries, or ‘difference’ to  distinguish one part of the continent from another. ) (Please pardon my sarcasm.) If you’ve never read it, it’s a really great piece of writing, and very relevant here because that’s what Uganda is in this play. The scene opens and it’s all there – the dung huts, the sad people milling about in the streets, the requisite warlord who’s terrorizing the villagers and stealing the luggage of well meaning white missionaries. It’s a bit of dead horse – which is a little funny, because in a bit of clever visual punnery, there actually is someone dragging a dead horse across the stage.

I’m not sure if this is okay, but when the curtain came up on this scene, I frowned. The villagers started singing and making jokes about how they have maggots in places I don’t want to think about, and I felt like I was watching some kind of post-colonial train wreck. Which I expressed to Artemis during the intermission. “What if,” she said, “the way that the set is done is supposed to convey how Price and Cunningham see and perceive Africa?” We agreed that both men set themselves up to think that the place they’ll be going will terrible – and lo and behold, it is. I think that’s pretty fair. We find what we expect to find. (Does that mean I expected to find stereotyped Africa in the play? Food for thought.)

After arriving in the village, Price and Cunningham learn that (as we might predict) the mission has been unsuccessful thus far. It’s hard to sell religion to people who can’t get their basic needs met every day. Price, being the goody-two-shoes that he is, decides to take matters into his own hands – and gets nowhere, until he and Cunningham meet up with the village leader’s daughter, Nabalungi. (It’s a reoccurring joke that Cunningham, who thinks she’s really cute, also can’t remember her name.) Nabalungi, unlike the rest of the villagers, is really sold on what Cunningham and Price are talking about when they talk about paradise.

But somewhere their wires have crossed.  Price is talking about the heavenly paradise after death – Nabalungi is convinced that if they convert to Mormonism, they’ll be granted access to Salt Lake City, which sounds like a paradise to her. “My mother once told me of a place/ … I always thought she'd made it up/To comfort me in times of pain/But now I know that place is real/Now I know it's name/Sal Tlay Ka Siti/Not just a story Momma told/But a village in Utah/Where the roofs are thatched with gold.”

Ah, gold roofs. A staple in the dreams of every immigration narrative. And it gets better!

“They have vitamin injections by the case” “The warlords there are friendly/They help you cross the street/And there's a Red Cross on every corner/With all the flour you can eat.”

With a paradise like that, it’s not difficult to see why the missionaries aren’t getting anywhere. These are folks who are really down on their luck. (Wainaina would probably have something to say about that, too, but we won’t go into that now.)

Now, this is where the story gets interesting. Price gives up, but Cunningham, who wants really, really badly for his friend to stay and not get reassigned to Orlando, decides to give the missionary work another go. He starts reading from the Book of Mormon to the villagers – and when they stop paying attention, Cunningham starts adding a heavy gilt of pop culture references, action, and drama. That seems to work – but they still don’t understand how this ‘book about America a long long time ago’ can help them here in Uganda. So Cunningham does what any stressed-out teenager does – he lies. He starts adding elements into the story that make the Book into a document that applies to the villagers’ lives. Of COURSE there’s something in the Book of Mormon about struggling with AIDS and dysentery and warlords and your daughters being raped!

But it works – people start converting. The lying and pop culture references, of course, get Cunningham in a ton of trouble when the Mission Elders want to come and see how the mission is doing and get treated to a dramatic interpretation of Cunningham’s new and improved Book of Mormon. (Which I was also kind of not okay with for lots of reasons, but I’m weird, so we’ll ignore that and move on.)

Having found out that everything she’s been told about god and paradise is a lie, and that converting to Mormonism doesn’t mean she gets to go to Salt Lake City, Nabalungi tries to run away. The villagers, however, try to talk her back into a good relationship with God. She tries to explain that everything Cunningham’s told them is made up, that it never happened, and that subsequently, it doesn’t mean anything.

“Of course -- it’s a metaphor!” the villagers exclaim. “Prophets always speak in metaphors. You don’t actually think Joseph Smith fucked a frog, do you?” Duh! What do you think we are, ignorant or something?

(Frog fucking was one of those elements Cunningham added in for cultural relevancy, as a helpful alternative to fucking virgins to cure AIDS, and it gets brought up a lot. I guess I just don’t like humor that relies on sex jokes.)

 I think what saves this from being a total post-colonial train wreck is the fact that there are some points in the play where the villagers really take  a stick to the eye of the missionaries and point out that their missionary work (which is pretty much limited to ‘Here, let us give you this book, accept Jesus as your  lord and savior’) is really useless, especially when you have to worry about things like your daughter getting raped by the militia or where your next meal is coming from or whether the nearby river will flood your house and take away all your possessions and arable farmland.

And the moment described above, for me, saved the whole musical. The smartest line in the whole production is spoken by one of the villagers, the villagers whom everyone has assumed know nothing about the world and the way the world works. They’re not dumb – they know a great deal. They just don’t have the resources or agency to do anything with that knowledge. Until Cunningham wakes up some of that agency with his storytelling. If the people he talks about in his version can stand up against their evil warlords or live with dysentery, why can’t you? What Cunningham has done with his reimagined Book of Mormon is what many great preachers do every Sunday – he made it relevant to his audience. (His methods might be a little questionable, but he did it with good intentions.)

And that brings me to the real point of this blog post, the ‘take’ that Artemis wanted from me. I’m one of the only really religious people Artemis knows. (I'm more culturally Catholic than what I can in good conscience label authentic Catholic, but the point still stands.) She and I were watching the same show with two different agendas, and she wanted to know how my religious agenda  had taken in and interpreted all of this.

One of the things that struck me throughout the play was the missionary work itself. As the play points out, just talking to people about Jesus isn’t very helpful. (Duh.) However, a doctrine of works, as some theologians have termed it, is much closer to what Jesus advocates for in the new testament. (This Sunday’s gospel reading from Luke was the story of the Good Samaritan –a doctrine of works reading if ever there was one.)  Now, we could talk A LOT about how ‘good works’ can go really, really wrong in lots of ways, but essentially, the idea of doing good works comes down to religion being practical and supporting the practical, day-to-day needs of the community. Cunningham did this by addressing his ‘scriptures’ to the problems the community faced everyday, giving them hopeful stories that would support them as they went about their work.  

The other thing that struck me was the play’s message about the authenticity of religion and religious practice. We’re given two characters: Elder Price, who does everything by the book and would be a perfect religious example except that he’s only doing these things in the hope of an earthly reward, and Elder Cunningham, who hasn’t even read the book, is unaware of basic dogma, and yet genuinely wants to help people by sharing the feeling of solace he gets from his God. Both of these religious practices are wrong, to a certain degree, and both could stand to have a little more of what the other has. Blind, unquestioned faith is just as harmful as no faith at all, and the Christian God also says that you should live and work  for the betterment of others, not just for yourself.

So, to summarize, the Book of Mormon wasn’t a waste of time, but some of the humor was probably wasted on me. I can, however, appreciate a story that promotes a little bit of dialogue, which this show did on a variety of different subjects, and for that, I can say that if you're going, you'll at least have something to talk about afterwards.

You Can't Put Nothing Past William Howard Taft: A Review of Jason Heller's "Taft 2012"

Those of you that know me could tell a lot of anecdotes relating to how much I like free stuff. It’s a bit of an obsession, really. But better than your everyday tradeshow swag (Stuff We All Get) is the free stuff I have to work a little for – answering a trivia question, or giving my opinion, or playing a game of bingo. One of my new favorite free things is the books I receive from Quirk Books when they nicely ask for internet denizens to review them. Two things occur when I get those emails – one, I get to help the enterprising and creative people at Quirk sell more product, and two, free book!

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not as in-tune with the political process as I should be. As a self-identified Democrat living with a very conservative Republican father, it’s probably safer for me this way. That said, I was a little leery of any book identifying itself as a satire of the political process. However, I figured that any book about the guy who inspired this song was worth looking into:

Yup. The Two Man Gentleman Band got me to read “Taft 2012” and strongly encourage friends, family, and co-workers to DRAFT TAFT. In my defense, I’ve read more serious books for sillier reasons, but in the long run, I’m glad I read this quirky and surprisingly insightful look at the American political process and the absolute circus it inspires every four years.

The premise of Jason Heller’s novel is fairly simple – William Howard Taft disappears from the past without any reason whatever and re-appears in the future – our future – just as election season is beginning. After reacquainting himself with the world, getting in touch with his great-granddaughter and her family, and doing a few rounds of the talk show circuit, Taft finds himself in the middle of a grassroots movement focused on getting him re-elected as president, a movement that forces him (and the reader) to examine what the American political process has become.

At a volunteer dinner several weeks ago,  one of my dining companions turned to me and said, “Now, I know we’re not supposed to talk about politics at dinner, but who are you thinking of voting for in the next election?” This was a hard question for me to answer, since the place where I am volunteering was founded by a very staunch Republican and I am, as mentioned above, of the Democratic persuasion. I told her the honest truth – “Well, I voted Democrat in the last election, but I really don’t know. It seems to me that politicians promise a lot of things during campaign season and never follow up on them, so is it fair to say, ‘He promised this and didn’t deliver’ when we know that always happens?”

My dining companion seemed to view this as an acceptable answer, and the matter was dropped, but the same situation came up in “Taft 2012.” Throughout the book, Heller uses a mixed media format, drawing in poll numbers, twitter conversations, and plain old prose to tell his story, and one of those ‘mixed media’ pieces is a transcript of a political analyst’s TV coverage of Taft. The  excerpt explains that the groundswell of Taft support is because he’s an ideal candidate who will bring us back to the good old days of yore, as this campaign advertisement will attest.

Taft is billed, in the beginning of the book and the marketing campaign for the candidate/book, as the candidate who always delivered on his promises and stuck to his morals, two things modern political candidates seem to lack.  Yet as the story progresses, he finds himself being sucked into the circus just like the rest of us, giving up on things he values to help his cause.

John Cass, an op-ed writer for the Chicago Tribune (a strongly Republican leaning newspaper, interestingly enough, run  way back when by the same man whose house I was volunteering at for that volunteer dinner) wrote a piece about a week ago about why he thinks Obama will win the election. Simply put, Cass says that Obama knows who he is and what he stands for, and the Republican candidates running against him are so busy infighting amongst themselves that they’ve forgotten to show the American public who  they are and what they’re about. Heller suggests at the end of his book that this is the only way candidates can win in politics – when Taft realizes that he’s forgotten who he was, he begins to work as a force for real change in society.

If you, like I do, come from a family of mixed political views, I think that “Taft 2012” is a great piece of writing to share with your family. It provides a (somewhat surreal) way to talk about how crazy the political process is, and it’s pretty amusing to boot. And even if you don’t, Taft 2012 is still an amazing piece of literature, and one I’m grateful to have read.

So, gentle citizens, get out and vote this November – and remember, DRAFT TAFT.

You can buy Taft 2012 directly from Quirk Books, from your local independent bookstore, or  from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or, if you’re lucky, you can try getting a copy from a site like PaperbackSwap.

Downton Recommends: An Edwardian Trip back in Time

This will probably be very obvious to anyone who knows me, but it bears putting down on paper: I am a very plugged in person. I read a lot of books, I follow a lot of blogs, I keep up with a number of news outlets, and I watch a lot – A LOT – of television and movies. I do this because I think it makes me a more interesting person, and also because I love having things to recommend to other people. Lately at my house the focus has been on – what else? – Downton Abbey.

 I love PBS and the work they put on TV, because it is usually fun to watch and also because, unlike much of mainstream television, their shows can usually be counted on to be something I can watch with my parents. (A lessening commodity, let me assure you.) My parents – my mother in particular – are very selective about what they will and won’t watch, and in an era where swearing and sex are becoming more commonplace on broadcast television, PBS usually pulls through for me with something that has no swearing, no sex, and no dubious scenes in dubious places like dark allies, strip clubs or seedy bars. It helps that my mom likes period dramas, too. So, after I dragged my sister through the first season of Downton Abbey (which I think she likes – she could just be putting up with me) and declared that I would have the TV Sunday night to watch the second season or perish without, my mom came down and watched the season opener with us. And, in a fashion true to my mother, when the whole thing was over, she asked, “So, when’s the next one?”

 Picture me at this point beaming in joy.

Of course, when the second season is over and we have to go back to our lives without the shenanigans of Matthew, Mary, and the rest of the Crawleys, I will have to find something else for my mother to watch. (She and my father complained at the end of the first season of Cranford, and the second season couldn’t come fast enough for them.) And being the plugged-in person I am, I’m compiling a list of (PBS approved) shows that I’ve watched in the past and wouldn’t mind watching again. So, without further ado, the list!

1. (The Original) Upstairs Downstairs (ITV/PBS, 1971-1975)

There has been much dirt thrown between the Upstairs Downstairs reboot people and the Downton Abbey folks, but it does bear saying that Downton Abbey is cast from the same clay as the 1970s PBS series. That fact cannot be denied. I still maintain that Downton is much more interesting that the recent remake of this beloved show, but the original is definitely worth watching at least once, if not two or three times. Upstairs Downstairs follows the adventures of the Bellamy family upstairs at 165 Eaton Place, London, and the lives of their servants downstairs as they deal with the turn of the century, the end of Victorian England and the beginning of the Edwardian age. (Interestingly enough, the Earl of Grantham’s sister Lady Rosamund Painswick is said to have a house in Eaton Square. I smell an imminent crossover fanfic.)

My mother claims that when this show was first on in the 70s her mother refused to let her watch it on the grounds that it held some scenes of a dubious nature. I watched it all several summers ago and was not at all fazed by the plot, but I am not my grandmother, and a servant getting with child out of wedlock, broken engagements, the first World War, and shell shock do not shake me. The cast was wonderful, the stories were alive and engaging, and there were some really first rate performances throughoutthe show’s run. I shall forever love David Langton’s Richard Bellamy, who gave a new meaning to the idea of the silver fox and who deserves a lot of really ravishing fanfiction, and Gordon Jackson’s Mr. Hudson, the loveable and peppery butler, was the type of character I should have loved to have spent time under as a housemaid, a demanding taskmaster but truly compassionate besides.

 2. The Duchess of Duke Street (BBC/PBS, 1976-77)

When it first came out, this series was accused of trying to ride on the success of Upstairs Downstairs, and to be sure, both shows feature a similar format – a house with servants below and a family of sorts upstairs, trying to deal with life in the Edwardian period. The title character, Louisa Leyton, enters the series as a lowly assistant cook with high ambitions – to become the best chef in London. A big goal in an era when it is universally acknowledged that while women can be cooks, only men have the artistic flair and panache required to be chefs. Through a series of complicated events, she becomes the proprietor of a hotel with its own ménage of interesting guests, servants, and family. The series was based on the life of Rosa Lewis, the proprietor of the famous Cavendish Hotel, a woman who was sometimes titled ‘the Duchess of Jermyn Street’ for the way she held court over the men who came to admire her cooking (and her good looks). I watched this before seeing Upstairs Downstairs, and the memories of it are a bit hazy, but I do remember liking the passionate and spunky performance put in by Gemma Jones as Louisa.

 3. To Serve Them All My Days (BBC/PBS, 1980)

If the end of World War One does for Matthew Crawley what it does for David Powlett-Jones, the protagonist of To Serve Them All My Days, I will be a happy fangirl indeed. I watched this miniseries several years ago and loved it so much I went and found the book by R.L. Delderfield upon which it was based. My copy, interestingly enough, is the tie-in version published for the series on “Mobil Masterpiece” as it was then called. (My, how times have changed.) TSTAMD follows the life of young Mr. Powlett-Jones as he returns from World War One a shell-shocked wreck of a twenty-two year old whose doctor has recommended fresh air and an enclosed community as the best hope for recovery. He begins teaching at a public school in Devon called Bamfylde under the auspices of a wonderfully jolly headmaster, Herries, and shepherds several generations of troublemakers and brownnosers alike through the joys of studying and examining history.

Delderfield was criticized for his flat characterizations in the novel, but I’ve never found any of his cast wanting in any respect of character. The miniseries was excellent, with top-notch performances by Alan MacNaughton as Mr. Howarth, the crusty and proud English professor and Frank Middlemass as Mr. Herries, as well as a particularly good bit of casting for the parts of several of the students who make up PJ’s cadre at school. (My favorite is always Boyer, a scoundrel with a good deal of charm who, just missing the action of World War One at the beginning of the series as a troublemaker in the 4th form, ends up enlisting at the end of the series in World War Two as a well-rounded young man of nearly 30.) This show also introduced me to the sound of spoken Welsh. Watch it for nothing else than that, if you must. John Duttine’s simple, scared young PJ is absolutely adorable rambling on in Welsh cadence. As is the terribly British and schoolmastery Carter, played by Neil Stacy.

Many of these shows are Edwardian in word and deed, but PBS has a treasure trove more set in the 1920s that I intend to preview for you! Any suggestions from the peanut gallery would be appreciated as well!

The Fairie Queen Joins Facebook

In contemporary lit on Monday we were discussing Twitterature, the phenomenon of taking large classic novels and whittling them down into twenty Tweet sized tidbits or less. You can read some examples and/or buy the book they inspired here. Being the strange internet dweller that I am, I brought up Sarah Schmelling's book Ophelia Joined The Group Maidens Who Don't Float: Classic Lit Signs On To Facebook and how this might be an expression of the same movement in literature, an effort to make these dated texts a little more modern.

So, in the continuing effort to offset the effects of the Mondaze, I'm sharing with all you English major types out there something that has brought me a great deal of joy over the past two days -- The Fairie Queen Joins Facebook. The idea is courtesy of Sarah Schmelling, the characters come by way of Edmund Spenser, and the humor is all mine.
 
---
Redcrosse has updated his contact info and changed his profile picture.

Redcrosse is now friends with Una and The Dwarf.
Redcrosse added "The Den of Error" to the Places I've been application.
Redcrosse sent Death to The Beast of Error. Die, Throw Obvious Religious Symbols and Papist texts, or send Death back?
Redcrosse hates small Errors. Hates them hates them hates them. The children of Error should DIE.

Archimago sent Redcrosse a friend request. Personal Message: "Hey, so I'm a lonely old dude out in the forest. We should be friends, yeah?"
Archimago and Redcrosse are now friends.
Archimago tagged Una in a picture.

Caption: Hey, Redcrosse, let's you and me hook up.

Redcrosse: ????!!!



Archimago tagged Una and Some Random Squire in a picture.

Una: That's not me!

Redcrosse: Una, how could you? I thought you were better than that!

Una: THAT'S NOT ME.





Redcrosse and Una are no longer friends.
Redcrosse is angry at Una. Stupid woman. Should have known she'd turn out bad.
The Dwarf wants to know where we got that squire. Something's not right here...

Duessa changed her profile picture and contact info.

Sansfoy invited Redcrosse to the event "Thinly Veiled Crusades Metaphor."
Redcrosse is attending this event.
Sansfoy is no longer online.

Fidessa* sent Redcrosse a friend request. Personal message: '"Oh, woe is me! You've won me from Sansfoy! Listen to my pitiful tale full of sorrow and woe!"
Redcrosse and Fidessa* are now friends.
Redcrosse is taking a break with Fidessa* and chilling out underneath this tree.
The Tree is Ow.
Redcrosse is OMG A TALKING TREE.
The Tree has shared his sad tale. Sympathize with, Listen carefully to, or Learn from the tree?
Redcrosse learned nothing from that story. Nothing nothing nothing.
The Dwarf thinks his master is an idiot. Possibly full of sound and fury. Possibly signifying nothing.
               Shakespeare: Hey, Eddie, don't steal my lines!
               Edmund Spenser: It's not me, it's the Dwarf.
               Redcrosse: I signify lots of things!
               The Dwarf: I'm not having this conversation anymore.

Una and The Lion are now freinds.
Redcrosse* sent Una a friend request.
Una and Redcrosse* are now friends.
Sansloy invited Redcrosse* to the event “Family Vengeance”
Redcrosse* changed his profile picture and contact info.
Sansloy wrote on Archimago’s wall: “Sorry about that, dude! Thought you were that Redcrosse fellow.”
The Lion is no longer online.

Una is very, very confused. And sad that she lost her Lion.
Two people like this.
Reader One: You’re tell me you’re confused – I was lost three cantos ago!
Reader Two: Seconded.

Redcrosse and Fidessa* added “The House of Pride” to the Places I’ve Been Application.
Redcrosse likes this Pride place. Although the queen isn’t very nice and didn’t give me any bling. I deserve bling. But I’m not proud, no, never.
The Dwarf could make a comment about the whole ‘pride’ thing and a certain crimson friend of his, but won’t.
Fidessa* sent Sansjoy a Token of Affection. Poke, Kiss, or Send a Token of Affection back?

Lucifera, Queen of the House of Pride, invited Redcrosse to the event “Death Match to Prove Your Worth”
Redcrosse, Fidessa* and Sansjoy are attending this event.
Sansjoy added Sansfoy and Sansloy as brothers using the Family Tree Application.
Sansjoy sent Redcrosse a private message. "My name is Sansloy. You killed my brother. Prepare to die."
Redcrosse sent Sansjoy a private message. "Yeah, whatever. (And what is up with your names???)"
Sansjoy sent Redcrosse a Fatal Blow. Die, Surrender, or Send a Fatal Blow back?
Fidessa* wrote on Sansjoy’s wall “Take the shield and me, too!”
       Redcrosse: Okay!
Fidessa* is Oh crap.
Redcrosse sent Sansjoy a Fatal Blow. Die, Surrender, or Send a Fatal Blow back?
Fidessa* sent Sansjoy a Dark Cloud. Hide, Flee, or send a Dark Cloud back?
The Dwarf is wandering around the castl –oh lord, that’s scary.
The Dwarf has tagged Redcrosse in the album “This could be you”

Redcrosse: Okay, we’re leaving now.




Sansloy sent Una a friend request.
Sansloy sent Una a friend request.
Sansloy sent Una a friend request.

Una wrote on Sansloy’s wall: “Stop trying to friend me! You kidnapped me and tried to do a lot of other nasty things!”
The Satyrs wrote on Sansloy’s wall: “Leave the lady alone, or face us. Capiche?”
Una is now friends with The Saytrs.
Una is now friends with Saytrane.
Sansloy sent Saytrane A Challenge! Throw a Glove at, Charge, or Send a Challenge back!
Saytrane is locked in an epic battle and will be busy for the rest of the story.



The Giant Orgoglio wrote on Redcrosse’s wall. “Hi, I’m about to kill you now.”
Redcrosse is weak…so weak…
Fidessa* knows that her evil plan is working.
Fidessa* and Orgoglio are now friends.



The Dwarf met up with Una again today! Happy day!
Prince Arthur is now friends with Una and The Dwarf.
Una tagged Prince Arthur in a note “The Backstory we should have gotten at the beginning of the story”
             Prince Arthur: Gee, that’s really sad that your parents are being held captive in a tower by a dangerous dragon. Admire me for my shining prettiness!
              Una: Yeah, I was hoping you could help me with that dragon business.
              Prince Arthur: Sorry, busy being the personification of magnificence! But I will help you get Redcrosse back from the Giant and HE can do that whole dragon slaying thing.
              Una: *grumble*

Prince Arthur saved Redcrosse from certain death today. That’s right, I’m awesome like that.
Redcrosse and Arthur are now friends.
Fidessa* updated her contact info.
Duessa changed her profile picture.

Redcrosse is AGGHHH! RUN AWAY.
Redcrosse and Duessa are no longer friends.

Prince Arthur tagged Una and The Dwarf in a note “My completely useless backstory”
              Thomas Malory: Say, this is good stuff.
              Edmund Spenser: Really, you don’t say.
             Chretien De Troyes: If copyright infringement had been invented by now I would sue you both blind.

Redcrosse, and Una added “The cave of Despair” to the Places I’ve Been Application.
Redcrosse and Trevisan are now friends.
Redcrosse and Despair are now friends.
Una wrote on Redcrosse’s wall – “What the hell are you doing? Get out of the damn cave!”
Redcrosse doesn’t know what he would do without Una.

Despair is trying not to be online anymore.

Redcrosse and Una added “The House of Holiness” to the Places I‘ve Been application.
Redcrosse and Una are now friends with Charissa, Fidelia, Speranza, and Caelia.
Fidelia has tagged Redcrosse in a note “Thinly Veiled Protestant Bible Exegeses Allusion”
Speranza sent Redcrosse a Piece of Flair – “Here, have an anchor!”

Redcrosse is chilling out with Penanace, Remorse, and Repentance.
Una is going to save Redcrosse from himself. Again.
Redcrosse and The Holy Hermit of Contemplation are now friends.
The Holy Hermit wrote on Redcrosse’s wall “See, aren’t I much more fun than those Remorse fellows? And oh, BTW, here’s your backstory.”

Redcrosse has changed his profile picture and contact info.

Redcrosse is now Saint George.
Una invited Saint George to an event: Slay-A-Dragon-And-Save-The-Day!
Saint George will be attending this event.
Saint George exchanged blows with the Dragon!
Saint George is still fighting the dragon!
Saint George fell in a pool of water. Bollocks.
          Saint John: Nice baptism metaphor!
          Saint George: I wasn’t trying, but thanks!
          Saint George: Have anyone of you tried fighting a dragon while wet? Just wondering.

Saint George is really tired of this. Just make it stop already. We know it was epic.
Edmund Spenser: Yes, but this is the first epic written in English! It has to be REALLY epic!
Saint George: You sadist.

Saint George was welcomed into the garden of heavenly delights today. Oh, Una, you make me so happy.
         Reader One: Okay, I give up. No one cares about the rest of this story anyway.
        Edmund Spenser: *is hurt*
        William Shakespeare: See, this is why I have more friends than you do.
        Edmund Spenser: Shut up.

Saint George received a friend request from Saint David, Saint Patrick, Saint Margaret, Merry Olde England, and Moscow.
Saint George joined the group “Patron Saints” “The Heavenly Choirs” and “Why yes, I am that guy in the Icon.”
          Una likes this.

Edmund Spenser tagged Redcrosse in a note “Needed: cast of characters for medieval-styled epic.” Also in this note: Britomart, Guyon, Prince Arthur, Merlin, and a bunch of other people.
               Saint George: There is no way you are getting me to come back for another book, Spenser. We’re through.

Book Recommendation: The Road from Coorain

I just finished reading Jill Ker Conway’s The Road From Coorain, her memoir about growing up in the Australian Outback in the 1930s and 40s, and realized there’s nothing better in my life at the moment to write about, so I’m furnishing you with a book review.

I didn’t realize this until after I finished the book and read the back cover, but the author was at one point in time the president of Smith College and an accomplished women’s historian, which should have been a huge clue that I’d enjoy this book. As it happens, I checked it out because the cover looked interesting, I’m in love with the idea of the Australian out country, and I was also checking out Eclipse and Breaking Dawn and wanted something a little more intellectual looking in my pile at the check-out line. (I live in fear that the librarians will judge me by what I’m checking out – It’s why I’ve never gotten around to just sitting down for a week during the summer with a heap of trashy romance novels.)

One of the first things I thought after finishing the first page of this wonderful little book is “God, this woman can write. This prose is mind-bendingly brilliant.” And it only got better as I zoomed through the rest of the book. Conway’s descriptions of the back country where she spent her childhood, working and helping her father on their sheep farm, drew me into a landscape I’ve only dreamt of through the poetry of Banjo Paterson. As I read on I couldn’t help feeling a sense of kinship and like-mindedness with Conway; One of the things that continually struck me as the narrative went on was the way she seemed to find the Divine in the harsh but somehow beautiful vistas of the desert around her. Raised by a devoutly anti-Catholic mother and a father who only dabbled in his faith, Conway stayed away from religion for most of her life, but despite this maintains a strong sense of the mightiness of nature and the serenity or intense strength one can find there.

As she moved away from the family farm and into the city, the author turned her insightful prose to examining her relationships, the people who enter her life and finally the academic life she’s easing into at the end of the memoir as a Master’s candidate in history at the University of Sydney. What really interested me towards the end of the book was the way she was drawn towards comparing the Australian Experience of settlement with the similiar American experience settling the West.

Anyway, it was a fantastic book, and I’d recommend it to everyone.

Summer Reading

Ah, the glorious month of June. Home to the beginning of summer, the anniversary of D-Day, the Glorious First of June and at my local library the beginning of Summer Reading Programs. This year's theme, rather lamely, is BANK ON YOUR LIBRARY, just to hammer home to the rest of the community who hasn't heard about their budget troubles. I think it needs to be given a rest, but hey, I go to the library at least once a week, so maybe it just seems like overkill to me.

Anyway, I've made several goals for this summer -- one of them is to finish summer reading, another is to learn how to roll sushi, and the third is to read the last three Stephanie Meyer books. So, yesterday, with great trepidation, I spent a good five minutes in front of the bookshelf at the library contemplating why it was again I wanted to bring these books home. My sister walks up, looks from me to the bookshelf and back again, and says "No. Don't do it."

Not even kidding. That's my sister -- always looking out for me and my continued mental stability. I respond "Well, I know they're terrible...but if I read it then I'll have something to write a blog post about!"

I could just feel the awful leaking out of the book as I went to go check it out.  I'd make a big deal of blogging how bad it is, but someone else is doing that -- if you haven't already heard about it, go check out Alex Reads Twilight, an absolutely hilarious series of YouTube videos done by Alex Day where he reads Twilight and makes fun of how bad it is. (The rate of posts on this subject on his YouTube Channel is a testament to just how difficult Twilight is to get through when you don't want to read it.)

Maybe the little sister and I will watch the Twilight movies and make fun of them while we're at it. Dunno if that will happen, though... To give you some idea of the movies we enjoy, right now we're in the middle of a cracking PBS series called Colonial House. It's reality TV as only PBS and your history teacher can provide, and it's wonderful!

New Moon is sitting next to me as I write this blog post, so obviously it did make it home, but I realized something about reading and books when I put my library books away.

If you need to rationalize why you're getting the book, chances are it's not a good choice for you at the moment.

My New Reading List

Finally! After waiting about two weeks for it, my library's copy of Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian was returned! I read the whole thing in about a day and then (as has become my custom with all the PJO books) I re-read it a second time. Good stuff. I didn't think the pacing was as good as some of Riordan's previous books -- the battle seemed to go on for forever -- but when I got to the end I was satisfied. I'm a little annoyed that he ended it on such a blatant "Yes, I'm writing another series" note, but I want to know more about Camp Half-Blood and the new life it's taking on after Percy's earth-shattering request, so I'm looking forward to the new series no matter what.


Riordan's announced on his blog that his new Egyptian series is beginning in May, which should be pretty awesome and apparently in May he's coming to a town near me for a book tour. I might have to recruit my sister or someone else to go -- I have a question I'd really love to have him answer. Given that he's writing in two mythological universes that are interacting with the present world, does he think that the gods of different mythologies should or could ever interact with each other in his books? Is it possible that, say, Horus and Athena ever get together and discuss pertinent world topics, or Hera and Isis do lunch sometimes?


Anyway. This week's my Easter Break, and in consequence of me being home, I've not only almost finished a PJO fanfic I've had floating around my head for a while, but I've also finished and added two books to my newest reading list:

"So You Liked Percy Jackson: What to Read Next"

I've divided the list into both Young Adult and Adult books, since I've been reading both. I've read some good ones and some so-so ones, but all of them are related to Greek Mythology somehow.


Young Adult Books



Quiver, by Stephanie Spinner.

A gorgeously retold Atalanta tale, sweetened still further by interjections from Artemis and Apollo. Spinner's Atalanta is wonderfully alive and her portrayal of the heavenly twins is quite funny. She's also written Quicksilver, about the messenger god Hermes, which I haven't read yet but can say has gotten great reviews from people who ought to know like, oh, I don't know, the School Library Journal.



Troy and Ithaka, by Adele Geras

I read both of these books when I went through my "Epic Poetry is Awesome" phase in 9th grade. Geras retold both the Iliad and the Odyssey very well, and I'll have to revisit these books again.



Oh My Gods, by Terralynn Childs.

This was one of my so-so books, a novel that uses as it's premise the idea that the descendents of demigods have their own school on a tiny island in Greece where they can get in touch with their godly past and hone their skills. Childs' protagonist was hard to empathize with and the premise was a little thin. At least Riordan's book involved the gods themselves -- Childs' style veers much more into the present.

Inside the Walls of Troy, by Clemence McLaren

Another book from my "Epic Poetry" period, and another winner, this one because it focuses not on the men of the Trojan war, but the women, who are an interesting and exciting bunch all to themselves. I've always had a soft spot for Cassandra, but Adaromanche, Helen, and Hecuba are all important characters as well. I'm still waiting for someone to write the story of Troy told exclusively from the gods' perspective.


The Arkadians, Lloyd Alexander

I remember during one summer reading almost every single book Alexander wrote, and the Arkadians was certainly among them. While I don't recall the exact plot, I remember that all those books were a joy to read.


Adult Books


The War at Troy, by Lindsay Clarke

I just finished reading this today and it was AWESOME. A beautifully worked retelling of what went on during the Trojan war. Clarke takes the interesting vantage point of Phemius, Odysseus's bard, and both telling the godly version of the story (Zeus smote the earth and a wall cracked) along with what we might take as the more modern version (there was an earthquake without any godly intervention and a wall cracked) I also like Clarke's retelling because his version of Helen isn't a floozy who runs off with Paris the first chance she gets, but a woman who's genuinely in love with her husband. I'll definitely have to read his Return from Troy when I get a chance.



The Last of the Amazons, by Steve Pressfield

It takes a guy to write about the all-female warrior society in such a headstrong, bloody manner, and I found myself becoming bored by the page-long bloodbaths. Pressfield did do a nice job delving deeper into the Amazonian culture (like all misunderstood 'savage' civilizations, they have another name for themselves, tal Kyrte, the Free) and I enjoyed reading from the different vantage points throughout the tale. Pressfield's also written novels about Alexander the Great and the Battle of Thermopylae, as well as more modern epic figures like Erwin Rommel.


Mary Renault wrote several fantastic books about Age-of-Heros Greece, including The King Must Die, The Last of the Wine, and The Bull from the Sea.




The Penelopia, by Jane Rawlings

This is an interesting offering, the continuation of the Odyssey centering around Penelope and told in epic verse. It was a bit boring at parts, but definitely did a lot to flush out the role of women in and around the time of Troy using the male-dominated epic style. Not to be confused with a similarly titled book by Margaret Atwood.