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shadowkat1. Is it just me or has Mad Men been really good this season? The last four episodes are superb character studies. Indicative of the time, and examine mid-life crisis and the monstrosity of the mundane. Watching is reminiscent of those glorious 1970s and 1960s movies: Carnal Knowledge, Five Easy Pieces, An Unmarried Woman, Lovers and Other Strangers,
and the later ones - The Ice Storm, Little Children and Revolutionary Road. Middle Class angst. Or as Don Draper puts it so well..."Nobody grows up wanting to be in advertising."
Last week's episode focused on Peggy and Joan, this weeks on Pete and Lane. This series, like a good wine, gets better with age.
2. After a brief exchange on an unrelated topic online...I found myself pondering the writers and novels and for that matter stories that resonated and influenced me the most as a youth. The stories that I remember. I've read a lot of stories in my lifetime and a lot of writer's, many of them award-winning and highly acclaimed, and yet often the one's I remember aren't either. Odd that. I've read Toni Morrison and Ursula Le Guinn but I can't remember their characters or the plots of their tales. Any more than I appear to able to remember most of Carey Grant's films for some reason - although I've seen all of them, they sort of blend together. I do remember Father Goose - actually that stands out.
As does Charade and To Catch a Thief. It's odd, Grant's older films seem to stand out in my head more than his early ones do. But back to books...
Here's 16 books that I vividly remember and re-read with obsessive devotion as a child between the ages of 7-14. The fact that I can remember them more than 30 years later, says something, I suppose, about their effect on me.
1. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. I fell in love with this book. It was amongst my first excursions into fantasy. And opened a whole new world for me. An adventure tale, where a little person defeats monsters using his wits. My favorite character was the impossibly tall and egnimatic Gandalf the Grey, who popped up to offer Bilbo advice. It was a story that made me think, that played with ideas, of good and evil, greed and glory, asking the question what is a hero, and what is worth fighting for? Money? Land? A way of life? Power?
Much like Wizard of Oz's Dorothy, Bilbo ventures far from home, then spends most of his time wishing he could just be back there again.
2. Are You There God, It's Me Margaret! by Judy Bloom. I think I must have read all of Judy Bloom's novels as a kid. Blubber was amongst my favorites as well. As was, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. But my favorite may well have been this one. I was a religious kid.
I believed in God, and liked the rituals. But I also questioned it. Raised Catholic, not conservative or papist, just sort of conventional - parents went on Sundays, if we were on vacation we missed it, and we did the Catechism Courses or Sunday School bit. At any rate, this book addressed those issues. The uncertainity of puberty. Of getting your first period. Of not fitting in. And the angst of having no one to talk to ...hope and faith mixed in.
3. Lisa Bright and Dark by John Neufield - is a story about three girlfriends who attempt to help their friend who is having a nervous breakdown. I read it in the fourth grade.
It blew me away at the time. It was precursor to Robert Cormier's psychologically twisty novels. And the novel I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Flowers for Algernon, along with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
4. Watership Down by Richard Adams - read this novel in the fourth or third grade. Was equally blown away by it. We all read it. I fell in love with the mythology of the characters. Other books in a similar thread never quite hit or resonated as well, although I read a lot of them - hunting the same tale from The Plague Dogs to Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh. The details, the fine details of the world, each character...but in particular the mythos...struck me, the folklore of it.
5. The Westing Game by Ellen Rankin - a puzzle book. About a group of funky characters living in a Hotel - all brought together by Mr. Westing. They have to figure out the puzzle to inherit the money. Each chapter holds a clue. I liked puzzle books and mysteries, particularly one's that had logic games. I was always rather good at logic games and logical reasoning. Loved Nancy Drew novels, the Hardy Boys, and later Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt, moving towards Conan Doyle, Travis McGee, Raymond Chandler,
and Agatha Christie.
6. Stuart Little by EB White. Yes, I know, everyone loves Charlotte's Web, but my favorite of the EB White books was Stuart Little. I fell a bit in love with Stuart and his quest for love with the bird. A tale of star-crossed lovers that defied description.
7. My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craig George - another book that I fell head over heels in love with. Sure there were other adventure novels out there, such as Where the Red Vern Grows, or Incredible Journey, but this book about a boy who lives in tree on a mountain fascinated me as a child. I lived near trees and I kept wondering what it would be like.
8. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey - I'm guessing this was the first romance that I read,
it was wonderful. Better than Misty from Chantaggnook or the Black Stallion. It was about Dragons. And Lessa, a poor abused girl who was selected to be a Dragon-rider. I read it in the 6th or 7th grade. And it was amongst my first fantasy novels.
9. The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis, along with all the other Chronicles of Narnia. I gobbled them up in the 6th grade. Read every single one, some more than once.
This was my first fantasy series. It lead me to the Hobbit, the Circle of Light series, URshurak, and various others including Le Guinn's Wizard of Earthsea (which I oddly can't remember at all. Odd that.) What intrigued me was the passage from the real world to the fantasy. The idea of two worlds coexisting, moving together in parallel structure.
10. The Witches of Worm by Zilphia Keatley Snyder - I think I read this book when I was 12.
I can't remember. But it's still vivid in my mind. It's a subtle horror tale about an emotionally lonely girl who gets roped into helping a sick cat that slowly appears to possess her and manipulate her into doing horrible things. The story never quite tells you if the cat is doing it or if it is all in the protagonist's head. We are her point of view.
I can't say I enjoyed it - so much as was completely haunted by it and couldn't get it out of my head. Possibly one of the most frightening books that I had read. And amongst the first that I'd categorize as Horror.
11. The Veldt by Ray Bradbury - this is a short story that I read in the 6th Grade, in a Junior Great Books club during recess. I'll never forget it. The story is similar in a way to The Witches of Worm. It takes place in the future and I think may be part of Bradbury's Martian Chronicles. In the story, the parents use a virtual reality room and computer system to babysit their children, who they spend little time with. One day they decide to turn off the computer, get rid of the room and...well...
12. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh - about a writer, a teen reporter, who doesn't fit in and lives in her head. I identified with Harriet. And like Harriet, wrote constantly.
The way the story was structured fascinated me at the time, various notes here and there.
I remember tearing through it then wanting to read it again.
13. All Creatures Great & Small by James Herriot - introduced to me in the fourth and fifth grade by my best friend at the time who wanted to become veternarian (she became an architect instead). I still remember the detailed delivery of a calf. Wonderful book about being a country vet in England and the people there.
14. Sandition by Jane Austen and another lady - I think I read all of Austen's books in Junior High. One after the other. My favorite, oddly, isn't even by her - but an unfinished novel that another woman completed - entitled Sandition - by Jane Austen and another lady. It remains to this day, my favorite romance, and I loved both the hero and heroine. But can't find it. I think I re-read it multiple times. Takes place in Bath.
15. Dune by Frank Herbert. I didn't like the sequels. Unlike other readers - it was the characters and political battles, and survival that I loved, not the mythology or the philosophy (which I thought was a bit silly or skimmed over). I loved the world, which was so alien yet so like our own. The main character who moved to a new land and did not fit in. The romance between Paul Atredis and the Sand People...who lived on Dune. His struggle to defeat impossible odds. And the adventure. I read a lot of books in this trope. Include Thomas Covenante - White Gold Ring Bearer, and the Susanne Cooper novels. But Dune is the only one I think I read multiple times. I checked it out from the library, then begged for it for Xmas, so I could re-read at my leisure.
16. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain - read in the 8th grade. Fell in love with the book, again an adventure story. It's really the only Twain I fell in love with. Can't really remember the others, assuming I read them. Huck's innocence yet worldliness is compelling, his street smarts. And his relationship with escaped slave Jim, who in many ways is both father and friend, more so than anyone else.
There are others but it is late and time to go to bed. These are just the ones that I remember vividly.
3. Was anyone else disappointed by Mark Watches reaction to Restless? Just me then?
Also, he seems to understand it pretty well, that was Restless in a nutshell. It's a far more interesting episode though...in retrospect. And it reminds me what Whedon can do when he focuses on the psychological and emotional journey's of his characters, delves deep into them, as opposed to philosophy, theme, or political allegory. Whedon? You are not
George Orwell, Stanley Kubrick, or Aaron Sorkin - stop trying to be! You are falling into the same trap George Lucas did - getting a bit too self-congraulatory (I blame Whedon fans and whedonseque for this) and a bit too into the sfx and meta/philosophical stuff. It killed Lucas and it is killing you. (Okay in my opinion, admittedly, I know there are people out there who dig the prequels to Star Wars and like what Lucas did post his earlier works, just as there are people who adore Whedon's latter works and think Buffy is silly. Mileage varies, folks, we know this. It makes life interesting..etc. Difficult, but interesting.)
and the later ones - The Ice Storm, Little Children and Revolutionary Road. Middle Class angst. Or as Don Draper puts it so well..."Nobody grows up wanting to be in advertising."
Last week's episode focused on Peggy and Joan, this weeks on Pete and Lane. This series, like a good wine, gets better with age.
2. After a brief exchange on an unrelated topic online...I found myself pondering the writers and novels and for that matter stories that resonated and influenced me the most as a youth. The stories that I remember. I've read a lot of stories in my lifetime and a lot of writer's, many of them award-winning and highly acclaimed, and yet often the one's I remember aren't either. Odd that. I've read Toni Morrison and Ursula Le Guinn but I can't remember their characters or the plots of their tales. Any more than I appear to able to remember most of Carey Grant's films for some reason - although I've seen all of them, they sort of blend together. I do remember Father Goose - actually that stands out.
As does Charade and To Catch a Thief. It's odd, Grant's older films seem to stand out in my head more than his early ones do. But back to books...
Here's 16 books that I vividly remember and re-read with obsessive devotion as a child between the ages of 7-14. The fact that I can remember them more than 30 years later, says something, I suppose, about their effect on me.
1. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. I fell in love with this book. It was amongst my first excursions into fantasy. And opened a whole new world for me. An adventure tale, where a little person defeats monsters using his wits. My favorite character was the impossibly tall and egnimatic Gandalf the Grey, who popped up to offer Bilbo advice. It was a story that made me think, that played with ideas, of good and evil, greed and glory, asking the question what is a hero, and what is worth fighting for? Money? Land? A way of life? Power?
Much like Wizard of Oz's Dorothy, Bilbo ventures far from home, then spends most of his time wishing he could just be back there again.
2. Are You There God, It's Me Margaret! by Judy Bloom. I think I must have read all of Judy Bloom's novels as a kid. Blubber was amongst my favorites as well. As was, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. But my favorite may well have been this one. I was a religious kid.
I believed in God, and liked the rituals. But I also questioned it. Raised Catholic, not conservative or papist, just sort of conventional - parents went on Sundays, if we were on vacation we missed it, and we did the Catechism Courses or Sunday School bit. At any rate, this book addressed those issues. The uncertainity of puberty. Of getting your first period. Of not fitting in. And the angst of having no one to talk to ...hope and faith mixed in.
3. Lisa Bright and Dark by John Neufield - is a story about three girlfriends who attempt to help their friend who is having a nervous breakdown. I read it in the fourth grade.
It blew me away at the time. It was precursor to Robert Cormier's psychologically twisty novels. And the novel I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Flowers for Algernon, along with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
4. Watership Down by Richard Adams - read this novel in the fourth or third grade. Was equally blown away by it. We all read it. I fell in love with the mythology of the characters. Other books in a similar thread never quite hit or resonated as well, although I read a lot of them - hunting the same tale from The Plague Dogs to Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh. The details, the fine details of the world, each character...but in particular the mythos...struck me, the folklore of it.
5. The Westing Game by Ellen Rankin - a puzzle book. About a group of funky characters living in a Hotel - all brought together by Mr. Westing. They have to figure out the puzzle to inherit the money. Each chapter holds a clue. I liked puzzle books and mysteries, particularly one's that had logic games. I was always rather good at logic games and logical reasoning. Loved Nancy Drew novels, the Hardy Boys, and later Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt, moving towards Conan Doyle, Travis McGee, Raymond Chandler,
and Agatha Christie.
6. Stuart Little by EB White. Yes, I know, everyone loves Charlotte's Web, but my favorite of the EB White books was Stuart Little. I fell a bit in love with Stuart and his quest for love with the bird. A tale of star-crossed lovers that defied description.
7. My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craig George - another book that I fell head over heels in love with. Sure there were other adventure novels out there, such as Where the Red Vern Grows, or Incredible Journey, but this book about a boy who lives in tree on a mountain fascinated me as a child. I lived near trees and I kept wondering what it would be like.
8. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey - I'm guessing this was the first romance that I read,
it was wonderful. Better than Misty from Chantaggnook or the Black Stallion. It was about Dragons. And Lessa, a poor abused girl who was selected to be a Dragon-rider. I read it in the 6th or 7th grade. And it was amongst my first fantasy novels.
9. The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis, along with all the other Chronicles of Narnia. I gobbled them up in the 6th grade. Read every single one, some more than once.
This was my first fantasy series. It lead me to the Hobbit, the Circle of Light series, URshurak, and various others including Le Guinn's Wizard of Earthsea (which I oddly can't remember at all. Odd that.) What intrigued me was the passage from the real world to the fantasy. The idea of two worlds coexisting, moving together in parallel structure.
10. The Witches of Worm by Zilphia Keatley Snyder - I think I read this book when I was 12.
I can't remember. But it's still vivid in my mind. It's a subtle horror tale about an emotionally lonely girl who gets roped into helping a sick cat that slowly appears to possess her and manipulate her into doing horrible things. The story never quite tells you if the cat is doing it or if it is all in the protagonist's head. We are her point of view.
I can't say I enjoyed it - so much as was completely haunted by it and couldn't get it out of my head. Possibly one of the most frightening books that I had read. And amongst the first that I'd categorize as Horror.
11. The Veldt by Ray Bradbury - this is a short story that I read in the 6th Grade, in a Junior Great Books club during recess. I'll never forget it. The story is similar in a way to The Witches of Worm. It takes place in the future and I think may be part of Bradbury's Martian Chronicles. In the story, the parents use a virtual reality room and computer system to babysit their children, who they spend little time with. One day they decide to turn off the computer, get rid of the room and...well...
12. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh - about a writer, a teen reporter, who doesn't fit in and lives in her head. I identified with Harriet. And like Harriet, wrote constantly.
The way the story was structured fascinated me at the time, various notes here and there.
I remember tearing through it then wanting to read it again.
13. All Creatures Great & Small by James Herriot - introduced to me in the fourth and fifth grade by my best friend at the time who wanted to become veternarian (she became an architect instead). I still remember the detailed delivery of a calf. Wonderful book about being a country vet in England and the people there.
14. Sandition by Jane Austen and another lady - I think I read all of Austen's books in Junior High. One after the other. My favorite, oddly, isn't even by her - but an unfinished novel that another woman completed - entitled Sandition - by Jane Austen and another lady. It remains to this day, my favorite romance, and I loved both the hero and heroine. But can't find it. I think I re-read it multiple times. Takes place in Bath.
15. Dune by Frank Herbert. I didn't like the sequels. Unlike other readers - it was the characters and political battles, and survival that I loved, not the mythology or the philosophy (which I thought was a bit silly or skimmed over). I loved the world, which was so alien yet so like our own. The main character who moved to a new land and did not fit in. The romance between Paul Atredis and the Sand People...who lived on Dune. His struggle to defeat impossible odds. And the adventure. I read a lot of books in this trope. Include Thomas Covenante - White Gold Ring Bearer, and the Susanne Cooper novels. But Dune is the only one I think I read multiple times. I checked it out from the library, then begged for it for Xmas, so I could re-read at my leisure.
16. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain - read in the 8th grade. Fell in love with the book, again an adventure story. It's really the only Twain I fell in love with. Can't really remember the others, assuming I read them. Huck's innocence yet worldliness is compelling, his street smarts. And his relationship with escaped slave Jim, who in many ways is both father and friend, more so than anyone else.
There are others but it is late and time to go to bed. These are just the ones that I remember vividly.
3. Was anyone else disappointed by Mark Watches reaction to Restless? Just me then?
Also, he seems to understand it pretty well, that was Restless in a nutshell. It's a far more interesting episode though...in retrospect. And it reminds me what Whedon can do when he focuses on the psychological and emotional journey's of his characters, delves deep into them, as opposed to philosophy, theme, or political allegory. Whedon? You are not
George Orwell, Stanley Kubrick, or Aaron Sorkin - stop trying to be! You are falling into the same trap George Lucas did - getting a bit too self-congraulatory (I blame Whedon fans and whedonseque for this) and a bit too into the sfx and meta/philosophical stuff. It killed Lucas and it is killing you. (Okay in my opinion, admittedly, I know there are people out there who dig the prequels to Star Wars and like what Lucas did post his earlier works, just as there are people who adore Whedon's latter works and think Buffy is silly. Mileage varies, folks, we know this. It makes life interesting..etc. Difficult, but interesting.)
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Date: 2012-04-17 10:34 pm (UTC)Last night's episode is playing with my head. So much there. So many layers.