While this blog isn't about a book, I think it still fits.
After seeing the movie The Last Airbender, I felt the potential for an amazing story and powerful characters, but that potential hadn't been reached. One of my friends told me that the animated series had a lot more, that she most missed the lighthearted humor and fun of the series, so I finally sat down and watched the thing.
I don't think I've ever seen such a contrast, and it made me think a lot about how we choose to tell stories. Clearly, the first book of Avatar: the Last Airbender did not succeed as a movie, but why? Sure, the movie utilized incredible special effects and a media accepted by a larger audience; definitely, there is less prejudice against a movie than an animated series, which are so often dismissed as childish or basic. Could a different director have captured the essence of the series in a few hours?
This raises questions about the success (or lack of success) of other stories. Think Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, Back to the Future, The Odyssey, and Star Wars. Beowulf, Shakespeare plays, the comic strip Little Orphan Annie. How do these succeed or fail in different forms, and why? When someone takes the movie Shrek and makes it into a musical, are we even listening to the story anymore? What is the value or purpose of each medium?
We've come a long way from sitting around a fire and listening to someone's version of an epic poem memorized and passed by word of mouth for centuries. What have we gained, or lost?
I think this is critical to think about especially now that physical books are going out of style, replaced by e-books; as letters are replaced by e-mails, e-mails by instant messages, tweets, comments and status bars. One of the things I enjoy most about research for English papers is reading the letters of authors, finding out their motivations and passions and progress--their own stories--from their own hands. What will the people generations from now find of us? What will we sacrifice of art for the sake of entertainment? What stories will survive, in what ways?
Seeing both the movie and the animated series helped me realized what Avatar: The Last Airbender is really about. The story just isn't the same without the small vignettes offered by an episode form; the repetition of seemingly minuscule elements, like the cabbage man; the episodes are, in a way, poetry. By transposing the story from a series to a movie, the humor, the character, and the essence of Avatar are lost. Like the message in one of the episodes, it's not so much about the destination as it is about the journey.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
What is "Young Adult?" (In which the writer attempts to engage in academic inquiry and concludes with opinionated and unresearched ranting)
From what I understand, classifying literature as "young adult" is relatively new. Along with this comes new research, definitions, experts, and more questions than answers.
For example: Who qualifies as a young adult, and why? Our standards for adulthood are strange: as Joseph Campbell noted so significantly in Power of Myth, we have no one cultural definition for adulthood except age. At 16, you can get a permit; at 17, you can see R rated movies by yourself; at 18, you're legally an adult; at 21, you can drink. But at what age does a human being know sex, poverty, violence, injustice? At what age does a human understand life? At what point does a child become an adult, and what is the meaning of the time in between? As far as I can tell, understanding is a life-long process, most adults I know lack maturity in some way or another, and many children know of more than we adults are willing to admit--some children know more than we adults know.
Is YA lit written for, by, and/or about young adults? What of all these writers--adult writers--who suddenly decide to flood the YA market with their work, using the formula less grammar + lower age of characters + popular culture references = young adult?
Most importantly, who is allowed to read young adult literature? Maybe the definition of a young adult lies here: those with the desire to grasp for more than has been assigned or designated to them. Then the question becomes one of availability: are we allowing children to grow into adults at their pace, or are we stunting their growth by fixing their potential to numbers?
Right now, we have recommended summer book lists separated by grade, but does a spectrum exist that factors in a person's maturity, interests, and reading level to find books that will foster growth? For example, if an eighth-grade student reads at a second-grade level, they shouldn't have to read books that have the maturity of a second-grader. Likewise, if a fourth-grader has excellent reading skills and devours a Beverly Cleary book in an hour, but isn't interested in the horny thoughts of older kids, do modern books exist for them or are they limited to Victorian classics? Summer book lists are organized by where a child's reading level SHOULD be. That's fine for all the fourth graders taking the eighth-grade book lists and feeling cool, but probably not as awesome for the fourth graders who wonder why they're stuck reading picture books filled with chubby, rosy toddlers.
Of course, all of this ties in with further rants about how education systems pass or are forced to pass kids en masse grade after grade without knowing necessary material, how--again--our notion of adulthood is based on age rather than achievement, and how we forget that every student--youth, child, and adult--is an individual. But what do I know of such things?
For example: Who qualifies as a young adult, and why? Our standards for adulthood are strange: as Joseph Campbell noted so significantly in Power of Myth, we have no one cultural definition for adulthood except age. At 16, you can get a permit; at 17, you can see R rated movies by yourself; at 18, you're legally an adult; at 21, you can drink. But at what age does a human being know sex, poverty, violence, injustice? At what age does a human understand life? At what point does a child become an adult, and what is the meaning of the time in between? As far as I can tell, understanding is a life-long process, most adults I know lack maturity in some way or another, and many children know of more than we adults are willing to admit--some children know more than we adults know.
Is YA lit written for, by, and/or about young adults? What of all these writers--adult writers--who suddenly decide to flood the YA market with their work, using the formula less grammar + lower age of characters + popular culture references = young adult?
Most importantly, who is allowed to read young adult literature? Maybe the definition of a young adult lies here: those with the desire to grasp for more than has been assigned or designated to them. Then the question becomes one of availability: are we allowing children to grow into adults at their pace, or are we stunting their growth by fixing their potential to numbers?
Right now, we have recommended summer book lists separated by grade, but does a spectrum exist that factors in a person's maturity, interests, and reading level to find books that will foster growth? For example, if an eighth-grade student reads at a second-grade level, they shouldn't have to read books that have the maturity of a second-grader. Likewise, if a fourth-grader has excellent reading skills and devours a Beverly Cleary book in an hour, but isn't interested in the horny thoughts of older kids, do modern books exist for them or are they limited to Victorian classics? Summer book lists are organized by where a child's reading level SHOULD be. That's fine for all the fourth graders taking the eighth-grade book lists and feeling cool, but probably not as awesome for the fourth graders who wonder why they're stuck reading picture books filled with chubby, rosy toddlers.
Of course, all of this ties in with further rants about how education systems pass or are forced to pass kids en masse grade after grade without knowing necessary material, how--again--our notion of adulthood is based on age rather than achievement, and how we forget that every student--youth, child, and adult--is an individual. But what do I know of such things?
Thursday, July 7, 2011
NECTAR IN A SIEVE
To those who live by the land there must always come times of hardship, of fear and of hunger, even as there are years of plenty. This is one of the truths of our existence as those who live by the land know: that sometimes we eat and sometimes we starve. We live by our labours from one harvest to the next, there is no certain telling whether we shall be able to feed ourselves and our children, and if bad times are prolonged we know we must see the weak surrender their lives and this fact, too, is within our experience. In our lives there is no margin for misfortune.
Still, while there was land there was hope. . . .
Nectar in a Sieve, written by Kamala Markandaya, is reminiscent of The Good Earth and Grapes of Wrath. There are similar themes: extreme poverty, a connection between the people and the earth, the strength of a woman's patience when faced with unavoidable circumstances.
Rukmani's story begins and ends with the memory of her husband and her surviving children. She herself is not extraordinary, but she survives, living each day as it comes, and enduring hardship because it is just a part of life. She leads no rebellions, does not try to improve her lifestyle except to achieve what is needed to survive, and here is a strange dissonance between Rukmani and the men in her life, who understand some truth that she cannot grasp. Both Kenny, the white doctor, and Rukmani's sons strive for more of something--whether that is money, health, or some notion of justice or equality. Rukmani doesn't understand this need for more; she does not contemplate Kenny's politics, but rather his character; and she sees not what could be, but what is, and does the best she can with what she is given. She accepts that a husband is the center of a woman's life, just as she accepts the choices made by her children, her husband's adultery, and the tenuous security of a farmer's life. In a life full of upheavals, there are only two significant losses that she cannot seem to overcome: the loss of the land, which is the home built for her by her husband, and the loss of her husband.
It would be interesting to know how Markandaya felt towards her character, as someone who was educated at University and lived her later life abroad as an outsider. I wonder if she feels like Kenny, who is frustrated by what he calls "ignorance" yet at the same time is drawn with an inexplicable love to a people he cannot make his own. Was she writing to explore political themes, to share the perspective of people like Rukmani with the Western world, or to explore Rukmani's character? Probably all of it at once.
Still, while there was land there was hope. . . .
Nectar in a Sieve, written by Kamala Markandaya, is reminiscent of The Good Earth and Grapes of Wrath. There are similar themes: extreme poverty, a connection between the people and the earth, the strength of a woman's patience when faced with unavoidable circumstances.
Rukmani's story begins and ends with the memory of her husband and her surviving children. She herself is not extraordinary, but she survives, living each day as it comes, and enduring hardship because it is just a part of life. She leads no rebellions, does not try to improve her lifestyle except to achieve what is needed to survive, and here is a strange dissonance between Rukmani and the men in her life, who understand some truth that she cannot grasp. Both Kenny, the white doctor, and Rukmani's sons strive for more of something--whether that is money, health, or some notion of justice or equality. Rukmani doesn't understand this need for more; she does not contemplate Kenny's politics, but rather his character; and she sees not what could be, but what is, and does the best she can with what she is given. She accepts that a husband is the center of a woman's life, just as she accepts the choices made by her children, her husband's adultery, and the tenuous security of a farmer's life. In a life full of upheavals, there are only two significant losses that she cannot seem to overcome: the loss of the land, which is the home built for her by her husband, and the loss of her husband.
It would be interesting to know how Markandaya felt towards her character, as someone who was educated at University and lived her later life abroad as an outsider. I wonder if she feels like Kenny, who is frustrated by what he calls "ignorance" yet at the same time is drawn with an inexplicable love to a people he cannot make his own. Was she writing to explore political themes, to share the perspective of people like Rukmani with the Western world, or to explore Rukmani's character? Probably all of it at once.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Amelia Peabody? Meet Amelia Edwards . . .
I read my first Amelia Peabody novel (from Elizabeth Peters's series) in Freshman year of high school, and I've been hooked ever since. Amelia is a riveting character, and the novels are filled with romance, mystery, and a good dose of history too. The beauty of the Peabody novels lies in the first-person narration, of which the reader is supposed to be skeptical. The heroine's confidence, strength, and vitality make Peabody admirable, but her faults and accurately-period prejudices make her human. Peters creates a truly lovable character in Amelia Peabody, and it's no wonder that the Peabody legacy spans 20 novels and 35 years. Of course, Peters's experience in the field of Egyptology doesn't hurt either.
However, until I picked up a book about early female archaeologists, I had no idea how much actual history Peters included: that Amelia Peabody was based on an actual woman, Amelia Edwards, who lived a generation before her fictional counterpart. Like Peabody, Amelia Edwards traveled Egypt by dahabeeya, with a female companion; both are clearly skilled writers, with Edwards succeeding greatly in travel journalism and Peabody with her accounts. Edwards actually co-founded the organization responsible for the success of Sir Flinders Petrie, which must be one of the greatest ironies in the Peabody series (Petrie is set up as Emerson's rival, and Emerson eventually becomes Peabody's husband). An even greater difference is that the historical Amelia never married; she broke off an engagement with a man, and the author of Ladies of the Field speculates that Edwards's sexuality tended towards women rather than men. I'm not sure why Peters changed this aspect--if this is even a significant omission, brought about by the constraints of Peters's own time period, or perhaps an element of Edwards's character that hadn't been yet brought to light or acknowledged--but in the end, Amelia Peabody is clearly her own character and not the shade of her historical namesake, and despite a rather conventional romance, the characters are unconventional enough for their time period to make their marriage just as unique.
Learning about Amelia Edwards adds an extra layer to the fictional character of Amelia Peabody, and it's exciting to know that a woman truly did play a significant role in the emergence of Egyptology--so significant, in fact, that Edwards is known as the "Godmother of Egyptology."
I have yet to finish this book--Ladies of the Field: Early Women Archaeologists and their Search for Adventure by Amanda Adams--but the first chapter was so exciting personally, I just had to write a post . . . I have a feeling that if the other five women are as interesting as Amelia Edwards and the Mexican Archaeologist Zelia Nuttal, this will be one of my favorite books yet--even if it is non-fiction.
However, until I picked up a book about early female archaeologists, I had no idea how much actual history Peters included: that Amelia Peabody was based on an actual woman, Amelia Edwards, who lived a generation before her fictional counterpart. Like Peabody, Amelia Edwards traveled Egypt by dahabeeya, with a female companion; both are clearly skilled writers, with Edwards succeeding greatly in travel journalism and Peabody with her accounts. Edwards actually co-founded the organization responsible for the success of Sir Flinders Petrie, which must be one of the greatest ironies in the Peabody series (Petrie is set up as Emerson's rival, and Emerson eventually becomes Peabody's husband). An even greater difference is that the historical Amelia never married; she broke off an engagement with a man, and the author of Ladies of the Field speculates that Edwards's sexuality tended towards women rather than men. I'm not sure why Peters changed this aspect--if this is even a significant omission, brought about by the constraints of Peters's own time period, or perhaps an element of Edwards's character that hadn't been yet brought to light or acknowledged--but in the end, Amelia Peabody is clearly her own character and not the shade of her historical namesake, and despite a rather conventional romance, the characters are unconventional enough for their time period to make their marriage just as unique.
Learning about Amelia Edwards adds an extra layer to the fictional character of Amelia Peabody, and it's exciting to know that a woman truly did play a significant role in the emergence of Egyptology--so significant, in fact, that Edwards is known as the "Godmother of Egyptology."
I have yet to finish this book--Ladies of the Field: Early Women Archaeologists and their Search for Adventure by Amanda Adams--but the first chapter was so exciting personally, I just had to write a post . . . I have a feeling that if the other five women are as interesting as Amelia Edwards and the Mexican Archaeologist Zelia Nuttal, this will be one of my favorite books yet--even if it is non-fiction.
A NEW LIGHT ON TIFFANY
One of the television shows I suffer an addiction to is the PBS show History Detectives. I recently watched an episode about a man whose great grandmother designed stained glass windows for Tiffany. Gwendolyn Wright, one of the detectives on the show, eventually talks to the author of A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls by Margi Hofer, Martin Eidelberg, and Nina Gray. Apparently, Tiffany had some progressive ideas about employing women at a time when societal expectations limited a woman's options to teaching or nursing. The Tiffany Girls were respected artists in their own right; this book definitely sounds like an interesting read!
Currently Reading (if I can get my cat off of my books):
Ladies of the field: early women archaeologists by Amanda Adams
Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal by JK Rowling
My To-Read-Next list:
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in it by Sundee T. Frazier
The Information Officer by Mark Mills
Jane Fairfax by Joan Aiken
Mockingbird: a portrait of Harper Lee by Charles Shields
Currently Reading (if I can get my cat off of my books):
Ladies of the field: early women archaeologists by Amanda Adams
Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal by JK Rowling
My To-Read-Next list:
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in it by Sundee T. Frazier
The Information Officer by Mark Mills
Jane Fairfax by Joan Aiken
Mockingbird: a portrait of Harper Lee by Charles Shields
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
WHERE THE MOUNTAIN MEETS THE MOON and GRACELING
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin, is an enchanting read. It's meant for kids 3-5 grade, but the storytelling format and illustrations are equally beautiful for all ages. It reminds me of Holes in the way that it wraps up all the loose ends and in the skill of the storytelling, but Mountain has a setting in fantasy China and incorporates a lot of beloved mythology. The author also includes a note in the back explaining her inspiration for the book, and I love when the author shares their process. No wonder this book was nominated for a Black Eyed Susan Award, and received a Newbery Honor!
Also finished Graceling, by Kristin Cashore. I liked the book, but it was a typical girl-saves-the-world-and-falls-in-love story. The main content of the book is divided between the politics (kings=bad, people=good) and the step-by-step thinking of Katsa, the main character and a linear thinker, who slowly works out her feelings, her interpretation of right vs. wrong, and her understanding of Po, the handsome lover figure.
The one unconventional feature in this book is that, no, Katsa does not marry Po and ride off into the sunset. Katsa's independence isn't seen as a psychotic fear of attachment or result of childhood abandonment, like so much popular religious culture will cry. It's okay for a woman to love a man but not want to marry him, have his babies, and settle; it's okay for a woman to want her freedom. Because of that, and not because she can kill a mountain lion with her bare hands, Katsa has potential as a strong female role model.
Also finished Graceling, by Kristin Cashore. I liked the book, but it was a typical girl-saves-the-world-and-falls-in-love story. The main content of the book is divided between the politics (kings=bad, people=good) and the step-by-step thinking of Katsa, the main character and a linear thinker, who slowly works out her feelings, her interpretation of right vs. wrong, and her understanding of Po, the handsome lover figure.
The one unconventional feature in this book is that, no, Katsa does not marry Po and ride off into the sunset. Katsa's independence isn't seen as a psychotic fear of attachment or result of childhood abandonment, like so much popular religious culture will cry. It's okay for a woman to love a man but not want to marry him, have his babies, and settle; it's okay for a woman to want her freedom. Because of that, and not because she can kill a mountain lion with her bare hands, Katsa has potential as a strong female role model.
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