The Heroes Forget in The Dark is Rising Series: How Tedious

One common variation on the "it was all a dream" trope is when the protagonists forget the fantasy/dangerous world they inhabited. The Narnia books sort of do this (but not entirely). The children revert to childhood and are not sure what they experienced. However, by the final book, if they choose to remember Narnia, they do. (As has been stated elsewhere, there is no reason to suppose that Susan won't come back to remembering Narnia.) 

In my fantasy Olympus series, gods and humans who leave Olympus forget--but only in their short-term memory. Their habits and skills remain. They are still drawn to Olympian matters. And they retain a kind of memory of the place in their dreams. 

However, if I ever figure out a way not to do the above (without taking the books off-topic), I will drop the idea.  

Because the forgetting trope in fantasy fiction strikes me as rather pointless. 

I read The Dark is Rising and Over Sea, Under Stone when I was growing up. I recently finished the remaining books in the series.And I was somewhat disappointed. 

*Spoilers* 

Unlike the Narnia books and my Olympus series, the fantasy action of The Dark is Rising takes place in our world. It slides back and forth between other planes of existences and other times. Otherwise, the action is based in the world of Will, the last of the Old Ones. 

He has helpers. But at the end, everyone else leaves or forgets. 

On the one hand, though I didn't find the last two books all that interesting, they are beautifully written with haunting scenes full of mythical motifs. The individual hero left alone to carry the burden of knowledge is in line with those motifs. 

On the other...I think human beings are fully capable of adjusting to new information. In truth, I don't bother to have people remember in my Olympus series because most of the action takes place on Olympus (the main characters all retain their acquired knowledge). And, too, I wanted citizens and gods to pay some price for leaving. 

However, I have Alima from His in Herland (related world) remember because, again, I think human beings are surprisingly, alarmingly, ready to adapt. Take AI: once something supposedly Terminator-like arrived, people simply shrugged and started new businesses. 

Barney and a bad guy

I suppose an "okay, we had a grand adventure--let's have a reunion!" reaction would be too prosaic for a grand saga (though C.S. Lewis pulled it off). But the "we are having you forget for your own good, so you will have no regrets" explanation is incredibly condescending, especially when aimed at main characters. And I don't buy it. 

I wrote a short story years ago ("Untainted") in which a character who chose to forget a particular event digs it back up again out of sheer (to borrow from the Brits) bloody-mindedness. 

In my fan-fiction for The Dark is Rising, I have Barney, the most insouciant of the characters, figure out who Will must have been. He tracks him down to become his boon companion because, hey, the guy needs someone!  

Dante & Change

Dante's Divine Comedy is truly remarkable. It backs up the belief that people in history were not all that different from us.  

The Divine Comedy in many ways is a medieval piece. Yet at the same time, it is utterly modern. The poetry is a bit daunting. But Dante's approach to characterization feels like something out of Joseph Conrad. 

For one, the story is told almost ruthlessly through a single perspective. That observation may seem obvious since Dante uses first-person. But in truth, ancient writers weren't averse to the royal "we" as well as the omniscient "we." For that matter, "I" in ancient verse is often relating a story that gives way to another person's story. People speak. They don't necessarily relate. 

And yet Dante the narrator not only controls the narration but what readers see is only ever within his knowledge and experience. He rarely breaks the fourth wall to instruct the reader or to leap ahead in time. He is limited. 

And, amazingly enough, he undergoes change. 

Heroes and heroines from ancient epics do undergo change. But in truth, most of that change is external. Homer's Ulysses never fundamentally alters. He is always the same guy, no matter what occurs. Medieval heroes are not quite as unaltering--self-enlightenment or self-knowledge has entered folktales--but they often change quite abruptly from one emotional state to another. 

Yet here is Dante the narrator subtly changing over the course of the Comedy from a scared guy who faints a lot and gets somewhat querulous and clings to his guide to bit by bit, a courageous fellow who asks courteous questions and is able to see his guide, Virgil, as a whole person with his own idiosyncrasies. 

Granted, part of Dante's change is that Virgil represents in his entire being the power of rationality. Dante the writer will ultimately argue that rationality and humanism are not enough to get a person into direct contact with God. They can get a person very far. They are necessary, even. But they can't bring that gap of faith. 

Paul's magnanimity. Christ's bread of life. Grace. Not all the "I know"s in the universe can leap the highest point of Purgatory into Paradise. The foolish virgins can't collect enough oil, especially since they set aside meeting the Bridegroom, however ill-prepared they were, for the equivalent of collecting points. The Bridegroom doesn't say, "You don't have enough." He states, "I don't recognize you." 

So Dante is making a point. Remarkably, he does it in a non-allegorical way. Virgil isn't a symbol or even, as in many allegories, the holder of a single trait. He's a guy. He gets exasperated with Dante, protective, pleased. He chides him, lectures him (not as the Man Who Should Lecture but from within his personality). He shows great courage as he attempts to resolve issues, despite being occasionally rebuffed. Dante the narrator goes from nearly worshiping him to treating him like a favorite if odd yet still respected and deserving of respect uncle. 

Dante the narrator grows and changes in his behavior and in his understanding. He is relatable to us moderns.  

The Storytelling Worth of Sayers's Translation of Dante

Dante's Divine Comedy is written in terza rima. Apparently, one isn't supposed to be able to translate terza rima from Italian to English (even though people have). The problems are understandable. Trying to find a word that captures the same meaning, allusions, and rhyme/rhythm between translations is an exercise in skill and imagination. 

Several scholars of Dante have consequently poured scorn on the idea and for reasons I don't entirely want to guess at, Dorothy Sayers comes in for a great deal of condescending tut-tutting. What was she thinking? Silly woman! The result is so hackneyed and Victorian. My, my, my. 

Before I continue, I must mention that Robert Pinsky used terza rima in his celebrated translation of The Inferno. 

I think the criticisms of Sayer are entirely bogus. 

Sayers's Divine Comedy translation (the final book, Paradise, was finished by Barbara Reynolds after Sayers's death) was the first time I encountered Dante. I read this particular translation in part because I was already familiar with Sayers from her murder mysteries. I also chose Sayers because I liked her commentary. 

I recently reread Sayers's translation of The Inferno alongside a prose public domain translation. 

What strike me about Sayers's translation is the following:

1. It MOVES. 

It doesn't lag or get bogged down in "oh, my, aren't we being special with our free verse" posturing (as quite a number of current translations do). It gallops along. The first time I read it, I READ IT. I didn't pause to bask in Great Literature. 

I will grant that the terza rima takes getting used to--but no more than nineteenth century prose or manga layouts. 

2. Sayers captures the story. 

The first time through, I probably understood about 1/2 of the allusions--okay, I'll be honest: maybe 1/4. I didn't, at the time, know anything about Ghibellines and Guelphs. As other fans have pointed out, it doesn't much matter. Dante's narrator (Dante himself presumably) is on a wild ride of an adventure through the cosmos of good and evil. 

3. Sayers captures Dante's own flexibility with language. 

One translator I read sniffily criticized Sayers's "cliches." What I read of Dante by that translator was profoundly dull. As Sayers correctly points out, Dante used whatever worked. Like Tolkien with his writing, he used "high" courtly language when it suited his purpose; joking language; platitudes and cliches; intellectual language; everyday language...

Sayers ruefully comments that unless one reads Dante in Italian, one struggles to fully appreciate his versatile use of anything that came to hand, from expletives to poetry. Thinking "he's Art; his depth must be honored with lyical cadences" is to miss that The Divine Comedy has been continuously popular from its inception for its own sake. It vividly communicates.  

4. Sayers captures the imagery of Dante. 

Two scenes stand out: 

The lowest point of hell in The Inferno is those who have betrayed God and fellow citizens: Judas, Brutus,and Cassius are endlessly devoured by Lucifer. 

The next lowest point of hell is frauds. In one of the most vividly disgusting images in The Inferno, thieves (who come across here as grifters) constantly  turn into each other:

There darted up a great

Six-legged worm and leapt with all its claws

On one [of the thieves] from in front and seized him straight, 

Clasping his middle with its middle paws.

Along his arms, it made its fore-paws reach

And clenched its teeth tightly in his jaw; 

Hind-legs to thighs it fastened, each to each, 

And after, thrust its tail between the two,

Up-bent upon his loins behind the breech.

Ivy to oak so rooted never grew 

As limb by limb that monstrous beast obscene 

Cling him about, and closer and closer drew,

Till like hot wax they stuck. And melting in

Their tints began to mingle and to run, 

And neither seemed to be what it had been.

Two heads already had become one head,

We saw two faces fuse themselves and weld... 

 Yuck! Don't tell me horror began with the twentieth century! 

In contrast, Sayers's Purgatory supplies one of the sweetest images of rest from trial I've ever encountered in a book. Dante and Virgil are laboring up Purgatory's mountain. They stop in a valley protected by an angel. 

We'd not gone far when I perceived a place

Scooped, so to call it, from the sloping lawn,

As valleys here scoop out a mountain's face. 

A winding path, not level but not steep, 

Led us to where the rising hill-spurs lose 

Half of their height along the valley's lip. 

Here nature had not only plied her paints, 

But had distilled, unnameable, unknown, 

The mingled sweetness of a thousand scents. 

Now - in the hour that melts with homesick hearing

The hearts of seafarers who've had to say

Farewell to those they love, that very morning--

Hour when the new-made pilgrim on his way

Feels a sweet pang go through him, if he hears

Far chimes that seem to knell the dying day - 

The quiet of the image, the frankly campground feel to it--familiar and comfy yet transcendent at the same time--all of it brings home to me that for Dante, as for Sayers, the cosmos was steeped in physical reality.  

Sayers is a unique translator because her desire to convey the essence and feel and excitement of Dante appears to be larger, by far, than her ego as a translator.  

Cinderella: Can She Transform?

In my latest A-Z list, I am tackling characters who transform. I have reached "C."

"C" brings up an opportunity to define again what type of transformation I am tackling. Primarily, I am tackling internal, not external change. 

Fairytales are a great example of the two types. In general, Cinderella transforms her external life--not some much her internal self. Beauty transforms her internal self which leads to a change in her external life. 

Cinderella can be given internal change. In Into the Woods, Cinderella realizes that being run after by a prince is far less interesting than helping a baker raise his child. Cinderella in Cinder Edna comes to the same realization but doesn't do anything about it. 

I think Cinderella is a fascinating writing problem, rather like Superman: Can a character who is supposed to already be inherently good and kind and long-suffering be given a story arc (without being turned into, say, angsty Batman)? 

I think it is possible but as with Lois & Clark's Superman, the man has to come before the "super." Cinderella's vulnerable and imperfect self must come first.  

Give Characters Jobs: Being Santa

I'm a big fan of giving characters jobs--the characters can then talk about something other than the problem of the week. (In Bones, interestingly, the job of parenting and marriage become the secondary topic for Bones and Booth to discuss during cases.) 

A number of shows produce working Santas. Bones, for instance, produces a Santa who may, in fact, be the REAL Kris Kringle. Bones and Booth then have to deal with other working Santas, including their bells. 

Castle produces a dead Santa; he was trying to fix a past mistake that happened in a previous job.  

In MASH, Hawkeye--in a Santa outfit--has to go off suddenly to the front. A soldier in a foxhole is amazed to see that Santa is...real! 

And in Frasier, Roz falls for hottie Dean Cain, but only when he is working as Santa. 

There are many, many more examples. 

The working aspects of Santa's life can be fodder for mystery and sitcom plots as much as the lore of Santa.  

Give Characters Job: Mandy as Business Owner

I'm a big fan of characters having jobs. From a writing perspective, jobs give the characters things to talk about, care about, focus on (as opposed to the "problem of the week"). How they handle jobs exhibits their personalities, and if the jobs can connect to the plot, even better!

The three sisters in Last Man Standing all have jobs. Mandy's is especially intelligent. Eve is focused on figuring herself out. The oldest sister, Kristin, is more focused on the job of being a wife and mother--though some of the best episodes do deal with her job as the restaurant manager at the Outdoor Man Grill. 

But Mandy's job is truly inspired. She starts out as the entertainment-oriented, not-so-great-at-school, popular sister, and in the early episodes, when Mandy and Eve are still in high school, that "job" works. But after she enters college, the writers have her start her own business. The daughter who seems the least like her father turns out to be the most like him.  

She and Mike have opportunities to discuss stock, advertising, taxes, trial-and-error, not giving up on a plan, retail versus online sales, pricing...

Mandy also develops and learns. Although she initially walks away from college to start her business, she decides that taking classes on "businessing" is a good idea. 

And Mandy's business gives other characters a chance to reveal aspects of herself. Vanessa wants Mike to help Mandy and convince her to continue because she sees herself as a negative reflection: she didn't realize that she wanted to teach geology until she already spent years in corporations being less than satisfied. I actually find this approach to Vanessa quite satisfying--I think that people can undergo quite a "crooked" road (as Joe versus the Volcano would say) that eventually takes them to what they truly want.

Mandy's job leads to more ideas and more insights. Incredibly smart writing!  

Alls the Ms: Maitland to Makiya

Barry Maitland: Dark Mirror is a Brock and Kolla Mystery, a police procedural/mystery novel set in London. The Brits are rather good at this type of thing–think Catherine Aird but a little more somber. 

Karen Maitland: Company of Liars is a medieval tale or series of tales told as the plague arrives in England (this is the Black Plague of the mid-1300s). The tone and details feel “right” (despite the thankful lack of “forsoothiness” language), like a darker Cadfael. 

R.L. Maizes: Other People’s Pets introduces another dysfunctional family. It’s a genre! This book includes a thief who wants to be a vet because she feels empathy with animals, which struck me as unique. 

Sara Majka: Cities I’ve Never Lived is a collection of short stories, almost entirely in first-person. And it occurred to me that such stories are a type of poetry: first-person stream of consciousness poetry. Which is possibly unfair to poets. But I honestly don’t see the point of something without a narrative arc. I don’t want to read other people’s diaries.

Amit Majmudar:The Abundance strikes me as entirely unique: the story of an Indian wife and mother in the American Midwest dealing with her grown children as she faces a debilitating illness. It sounds depressing but the opening chapter comes across as more real life than angst-filled naval-gazing.

Nathan Makaryk: Nottingham, a Robin Hood tale, struck me as too modern. The issue is not language, especially since I prefer that authors not try to use medieval vocab and syntax. Rather, the mindset seems too modern. I didn’t get past the prologue though the set-up was interesting. 

Andrei Makine: Brief Loves that Live Forever begins in Soviet Russia. It comes across as very Russian–monologues about politics; sparse crisp language; reflections on fleeting beauty; the cold. Without reading more of the author’s work, that assessment may or may not be fair. I remind myself that writers and speakers and everyone else use the “language” (tropes) of their social understanding. 

Kanan Makiya: The Rock is a fictional view of the geographic structure in Jerusalem. It tackles different stories about it. I would find the book more interesting as non-fiction.

A-Z Characters That Transform: Colin Craven

In The Secret Garden, Mary transforms first. And some scriptwriters obviously feel that her character is somewhat abandoned. They aren't wrong. Colin's recovery kind of overwhelms the last part of the book. 

And it is skillfully done. 

Both Mary and Colin undergo a spiritual transformation before they undergo physical ones. They are both cross, self-centered, friendless, and spoiled (Mary through neglect; Colin through undue deference). They go out into nature, and they are cured! 

Not entirely, but the underlying idea here was common to the time period. It is the same idea that gave rise to muscular Christianity, the YMCA, Boy Scouts, and National Parks. Send people into nature, and they will shed all the bad manners they picked up in the evil urban environment. 

One of the few version to do 

the scene correctly. 

Frances Hodgson Burnett, however, was also a decent observer of children. Colin and Mary's transformations are more organic and realistic than Pocahontas dancing through the trees. One of the best scenes in the entire book is when Mary shouts down Colin's tantrum. He is convinced that he felt "a lump." Mary insists on scanning his back and tells him, in utter scorn, that there isn't a lump; if he claims there is again, "I shall laugh!"  

Burnett writes, "No one but Colin himself knew what effect those crossly spoken childish words had on him. And now that an angry, unsympathetic little girl insisted obstinately that he was not at all as he thought he was, he actually felt as if she might be speaking the truth."

It is an excellent true-to-life moment. Nature helps Colin. So does another child and not just any another child--but an equally sharp and clever cousin. And although Mary changes, she doesn't lose her sharp cleverness. She doesn't become angelic.   

The second part of the transformation is that Colin gets out of bed and eventually can walk and run. 

For some reason, filmmakers balk at this. They either have him not entirely recover or so slowly that the final scene is Colin tottering to reach his dad rather than acting as he does in the book: a totally ADHD, I-got-a-billion-ideas-brewing-at-a-time unstoppable force who RUNS at his father. 

I suspect they are afraid of making Colin TOO well (and consequently making some viewers feel bad or something). A solution is embedded in the text yet few films use it: Colin's doctor doesn't particularly want him to get well and practices a kind of Munchausen's by Proxy on him (see The Sixth Sense). The doctor's tut-tutting and bad doctoring create tension as well as a possible mystery and could provide a really decent pay-off (which is never used though one of the versions makes Mrs. Medlock overly protective).  

The most remarkable aspect of Burnett's text is not only that Colin gets better but that he gets better is such a specific way, retaining a core personality. He and Mary, who are cousins, are like two sides of a genetic coin. They are both curious,  smart, interested in practical matters. Mary is a doer, someone who wants to dig into earth. Colin wants to carry out real-world experiments but he is more about books and learning and starting his own religion or philosophy. 

It is easy to picture them after World War I (which, unfortunately, would have arrived when Mary and Colin were anywhere between 13 and 24 depending on whether the book takes place in 1900 or 1911): Mary and Colin and, if they could persuade him, Dickon go to digs in Mesopotamia where Mary works as an archaeologist and Colin as an anthropologist. Dickon keeps them safe. 

The differing mental framework here remains consistent throughout the book!  

The Secret Garden: Will a Filmmaker Ever Get it Right?

My latest A-Z List is about characters who transform. The Secret Garden has lots of such characters! Before posting about a few, I am posting about the book and its movies. 

Frankly, most of the movies are fairly dreadful because they mostly miss the point. Although the book is classified (by some) as "fantasy," it isn't. Colin talks about magic, but his belief system is part of the Bohemian, pre-Progressive philosophies that show up later in the writings of people like Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Nothing "magical" happens in the book unless one counts dreams. The entire point--the entire point--is that the natural processes around Colin and Mary are precisely and exactly that: natural. 

The second point that is almost always missed is how hard Colin and Dickon and Mary work to restore the secret garden. The fact that they don't have to start from scratch is entirely due to Ben Weatherstaff having visited the garden and done a fair amount of work pruning and such over the 10-year break (which Dickon acknowledges). But there's still more to be done. 

The story is not about cutesy children "playing." They are outside doing a job. The job is what gives them a new outlook on life and burgeoning sense of purpose. 

The book also isn't Freudian despite the desperate attempts of various filmmakers to make it Freudian. Mary isn't traumatized. She is angry. Archibald Craven isn't excused as a bad father due to his terrible trauma. He just is one. He is also rather pathetic which is why Colin could want to impress his father and then move on with his life.  

The story is about children being children, not children being a mental mess.  

This past summer I watched and rewatched some of the films--

Secret Garden (1949): The best thing about this version is Dean Stockwell and Margaret O'Brien screaming at each other. They are both professionals (at age 13 and 12) and have the right look. In fact, I think O'Brien would have done a better job if she had been allowed to act as tough as Mary does in the book (she clearly had the ability) instead of descending into 1940s maudlin-triteness. Dean Stockwell has less to do but is exactly on-target. 

Secret Garden (1987): The actress who plays Mary (Gennie James) is quite good. Unfortunately, the movie is entirely ruined by the actor (Jadrien Steele) who plays Colin. 

He is just about the healthiest, sturdiest "sickly" youngster I've ever seen on television. He also looks like an English squire, on the verge of shouting, "I say--what what--bring me a brandy--what what." 

Not exactly a boy with "a sharp, delicate face, the colour of ivory, and [agate-grey] eyes too big for it," who has a penchant for philosophy and cries out when he enters the garden, "I shall live forever and ever and ever."

I couldn't help but wonder if Barret Olivier, from Neverending Story, who does a decent job as Dickon (standing in the back), was supposed to be Colin--except he shot up several feet before filming. He has the right type of face. 

Secret Garden (1993) is the best of the lot. The characters are well-cast. The children work in the garden at least. The philosophical magic is replaced with an invented ritual, but the idea is the same. The reveal is nicely done (though I still believe that the book does it best). The movie doesn't end with the bang it should, and I suspect the problem may be the book itself, not the movie. 

I review Secret Garden (2020) here. In sum, it is lush and beautiful and completely misses the point. 

The next post will address Colin's transformation.  

What is It about Doctor Shows?

Some of the earliest popular television shows were doctor dramas. And almost from the beginning--even in the 1/2 hour shows--they were soooo angst-filled.

I spent a lot of time in the Maine Med ER these past four+ years waiting for people to put my parents through tests, and I can attest that doctors aren't sitting around clutching their heads and hearts. They aren't constantly experiencing crisis of faith or belief or whatever. Thank goodness! 

Arguably watching angst-filled people still perform efficiently is the attraction of these shows. (Watch life and death being handled by a professional!) But the look-at-so-much-competence-amongst-so-much-HORROR is rather draining.

Between Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare, I found Dr. Kildare slightly less oppressive, in part because Richard Chamberlain is a decent actor and also because the day-to-day grind is often emphasized (in the earlier seasons, at least). 

But generally speaking, these shows bring home why early MASH was so comparatively impressive. For one, it had already laid claim to the ultimate angst: War! Consequently, the doctors act more like actual doctors, focused on their expertise, guided mostly by practical self-interest and basic needs. 

It didn't take long for MASH to become self-conscious (by about Season 4). I used to put down the change to anti-war lecturing pompousness taking over. But now I wonder if the looming tradition of Important and Suffering Doctors was the factor. 

Too bad. Watching people do a job is more interesting, ultimately, than watching people clutch their heads and hearts.  

Books to Movies: Sad Endings Versus Depressing Endings

I am generally not a fan of sad endings, mostly because I think they are cop-outs. Any struggling writer can earn instant accolades from daft critics by throwing in DARK scenes and TRAGIC denouements and LOTS OF JARGON with DEPRESSING ANALYSIS. 

So what? 

It is so much harder to successfully resolve problems in a reasonably happy way. I review romance novels in a connected blog. Because many of my reviews tend to be negative, it may appear that there are very few good romance novels out there. In truth, there are excellent romance novels available. They are simply harder to write and rarely earn critical (as in, higher academic) approval. 

I think The Hobbit only didn't end on a depressing note because one can go on to watch The Lord of the Rings. I write elsewhere about how Jackson should have paid off Tauriel better, even if he kept the book ending and (still) killed off Kili and Fili. 

The Lord of the Rings, in contrast, ends sadly but not depressingly. In fact, I'm not sure I would even call it "sad." The Japanese do a better job tackling the sad-but-not-right-and-fitting-and-lovely-while-aching:

Mono no aware. 

Frodo is the Fisher King, like King Arthur: the hero king or prince with a wound that never heals. He cannot stay. And however sad I find Tolkien's solution here, I also think it is more honest--in some ways--than fantasies that want everything to return to being EXACTLY THE SAME. They can't. Merry and Pippin and Sam have changed. The Scouring of the Shire changed Hobbit culture. The departure of the elves changes Middle Earth. It's good and bad. It's life. It's inevitable. 

Tolkien wasn't afraid of age or change. So Frodo leaves. 

I cry every time I read the book or watch the trilogy. But I am left feeling fulfilled because the ending is a well-written and appropriate ending.   

Bilbo's Transformation

A great deal has been written about Bilbo's handling of his midlife crisis. 

From a writing perspective, Bilbo is a transformative character par excellence, in part because he transforms without becoming someone else. 

The challenge of the transforming character is the problem of Scrooge (who will naturally come up later). If the character changes too much--like the Beast to the Prince--the audience might feel cheated or indifferent. After all, replacing Character A with Character B is not much of a transformation. It's just an exchange. 

Bilbo remains Bilbo. But much more Bilbo-ish than he might have been otherwise. 

From one of my Tolkien posts, I state: 

Bilbo remakes himself; he still values the comforts of the cozy life yet he is willing and able to appreciate the dangers he has experienced:

A pivotal moment echoed by the lines from the movie below.

Bilbo Baggins: No! I am glad to have shared in your perils, Thorin. Each and every one of them. It is far more than any Baggins deserves.

Bilbo Baggins: One day I'll remember. Remember everything that happened: the good, the bad, those who survived... and those that did not.

This is the Bilbo who will adopt and raise the near saintly Frodo, who saves not just hobbits but  the entire world. Could (would) Bilbo have done it otherwise?

The remarkable aspect of Tolkien's and Jackson's approach to this change is that while the redefinitions have epic results, the redefinitions themselves are human, ordinary, even small.

"He was my friend," Bilbo says of Thorin in the movie (reflecting the relationship in the book), a small declaration in which the entire Fellowship (and the future of the ring) is contained.

 

Great Human Moment in One Punch Man

is...fine. 

Dorothy Sayers wrote that there is no group of people who can't find common ground complaining about drains. 

In sum, some practical conditions of human mortality crop up again and again--which is where humor comes from.

In One Punch Man, an asteroid--or rather, parts of an asteroid since Saitama prevents the entire rock hitting the planet--takes out areas in a city. Saitama notes that the "supermarket is in ruins...But my old landlord's building is fine? Tch!"

The anime uses this event: Saitama complains that the apartment building that he got evicted from is still standing while everything around it is reduced to rubble!

Anyone can relate to unsatisfactory landlords and the fact that karma honestly doesn't happen according to plan.  

And here's a joke about drains: 

 

 

All the Ms: Mahy to Mairal

Mahy, Margaret: Mahy, who mostly writes children’s books, wrote the teen book The Changeover. I’m a fan! 

Maia, Ward: The short story "Summer Santa" falls into the category of travelogue + romance. Travelogue romance is mostly about two people enjoying time together in a country--in this case, Brazil--often on vacation. There isn't much plot but I don't suppose these types of stories need to have plot.

Mailer, Norman: I didn’t especially want to read anything by Mailer. Mailer is one of those writers that I always felt I was supposed to read in order to be “well-read” or edified or edgy. I hate reading for that reason. But I read the opening of The Naked and the Dead, which introduces soldiers heading to a campaign. None of them are likable. War is awful. So...Mailer is a good writer. Can I move on now? (For all I know, Mailer is now on the “outs” with the kind of people who monitor what others read for their own good. It doesn’t matter. "This is what one ought to read" is usually a big red flag in the arts.) 

Maine, Sarah: Women of the Dunes is a tale that transitions from the late medieval era to the modern era to the late nineteenth century. Rather than exploring documents, the main character Libby is an archaeologist. And the area is Scotland. Somewhat unique. 

Mairal, Pedro: The Woman From Uruguay is about the dissolution of a marriage. The “you” in the text is appropriate (I’m generally opposed to “you” in texts) since the narrator is addressing his to-be-estranged wife. But the “oh, my goodness, how could this happen to us; it must be different from what has ever happened to others” stuff is tedious. Out of all the genres, the genre of the messed-up marriage is the most cliched despite the fact that it is treated with such intellectual gravity. 

Transformation: Arrietty and Does She Transform Too Much?

The new A-Z List is about characters, some in disguise, who transform or reveal themselves. I find this particular theme particularly captivating. Unlike other lists, which went by author, this list will go by characters' names. 

* * *

My mom read me the Borrower books by Mary Norton when I was growing up. Between The Borrowers Aloft (the fourth book of the first set) and The Borrowers Avenged lie 21 years. 

The Borrowers Avenged is likely one of the last books she read aloud to me since as I got older and better at reading (I struggled when I was younger), I didn't wait for her to finish a book with me. 

What I remember from that time is that my mom didn't care for the book because she thought the author altered Arrietty's fundamental character. 

I recently reread the entire series, and I have to agree. I wonder if the author was trying to answer problems and questions raised by her readers. (Another reason artists should satisfy but ignore their audiences.)

In the early books, Arrietty loves the outdoors. She hates being locked in under the floor. Her desire to be outside is not only to have more scope and not feel confined. She loves the outdoors for its own sake. Despite being smoked out of her first home, despite the cold and wet and danger of the countryside, Arrietty still cries out with relief and pleasure when Pod and Homily, her father and mother, decide to leave the cottage to try their hand again in the outdoors. 

Arrietty does keep a diary, but she mostly writes because she can and it gives her a break from her mother. A true writer would have filled the tiny journal Pod got for Arrietty. Such a writer would go on to use whatever writing surfaces were available to scribble out more. Arrietty doesn't. 

She reads for the same reason, being more interested in factual information than made-up stories. She is active, moving, never entirely still. She would be a hiker, mountaineer, and adventurer if she was human. (I wrote that line as someone who ISN'T a hiker, mountaineer, or adventurer. I'm not disappointed in later Arrietty because I think she should be more like me. I am disappointed because I liked her for herself.) 

From Borrowers Afield

In The Borrowers Avenged, Arrietty and Pod and Homily find themselves in a large, rambling, historically protected vicarage that is inhabited by a single couple. They end up in "rooms" that give them access to the outside; Pod even suggests that he will use the skills he acquired during their time in the "wild" to collect food from the overgrown garden and pond. If she wants to experience nature, Arrietty can travel to the end of the drive and climb a bush (while remaining well-groomed, like a woman riding a horse side-saddle). She can also travel to the nearby church to visit her relatives. Moreover, she meets another young borrower, a partly lame young man who recently moved into the building's birdhouses. He is kind, intelligent, literary, and likes to paint. 

On the one hand, I can understand Norton wanting to give Arrietty more dating options than the exceedingly uncommunicative Spiller. And the new home offers more to the family than the other homes did. And people, especially teens, do change as they mature. 

She wears trousers!

On the other, in this last book, I feel that Arrietty is literarily confined by her author. Suddenly, not only do other borrowers protest at Arrietty's behavior, the author does as well! Arrietty needs to calm down, settle down, accept her lot in life. 

I've never been one to buy into the cliche of imprisoning suburbia where a good little woman in a pretty dress greets her hardworking husband with a cocktail at the end of the day. I grew up in suburbia in the 1970s. Not only did none of the women I knew act that way, none of their mothers had acted that way. (The woman next door did keep redecorating her house but she also started a business, so...). 

It's a lovely picture. Still--look at

the illustrations above.

Nonetheless, I felt at the end of my recent rereading of the entire Borrower series that "round" and energetic Arrietty had been pressed into a "square" hole: she had been put-in-her-place. She and Spiller even have a kind of fight at the end. She won't be traveling up and down the river with him and their borderline wild kids. Or catching a ride on a visitor's coat (like Stainless did) to explore a nearby town as if it was a new country. 

Instead, Arrietty is going to get married to a guy who corrects her grammar, produce proper little borrower children who behave in traditional ways, live a tidy little life in a reasonably acceptable house that she can't really complain about...

The writer seems to be saying, Haven't I given you what you wanted? There's a grate to the outside! There's a bush! Now, be happy and stop complaining.  

It is very sad. 

Arrietty aside, other parts of the last book are quite good. Peregrine is an interesting addition. Pod and Homily are getting the type of house THEY want. Aunt Lupy is hilariously presented as having "repented" her snobbery because she went to live in a church. Her son IS a wild child. 

And...Arrietty is now a proper grown-up.

*Sigh.*  

So transformation is good--but if it undermines the fundamental personality of a character, it may be considered a failure rather than a triumph.  The solution lies somewhere between Alice and 1982 Arrietty. 

Transformation NOT: Alice in Wonderland

The new A-Z List (A-Z List 11) is about characters who transform. Character pull off disguises. They reveal true intentions. They change their moral attitudes and/or beliefs. 

Arguably, all characters do the above. The most basic premise of the fantasy narrative arc, for instance, is that the protagonist experiences an internal epiphany. Luke gains courage and self-belief; he listens to the Force. Various characters determine not to become immortal; Dante (the character) matures from obsessed with petty sins to caring about God. 

However, some characters honestly don't change--or not change in the sense that I apply to this list. Alice of Wonderland has lots of things happen to her and she undergoes a great many things. But her fundamental "every girl" personality doesn't alter. She gets taller and smaller but she is still always Alice and the physical transformations have zero impact on her fundamental personality or status. She isn't even Cinderella, looking to climb the ladder! 

Regarding this issue of change, I will address a second "A" character, Arrietty, in the next post; the question I will tackle there is, When does TOO MUCH transformation change the character SO much, the reader might as well give up on the book/series entirely? 

Overall, the list will tackle transformation within a particular, individual self.  

Lesson from the Ms: Make It Personal

Her rage is personal.

Less noble. More interesting.

Perusing so many fiction books, I've been reminded of how much human beings love stories. They love them for many reasons, including C.S. Lewis and Tolkien's belief that in creating story, human beings are trying to emulate their creator. 

Here, I suggest that stories allow us to zero in on the personal. Out of all the complications within life, we can focus on an individual. Through that individual, the complications sometimes come into focus.  

I wrote a story many years ago based on Sleeping Beauty, only my "Sleeping Beauty" was a prince who was cursed with unending sleep if he should ever pick up a sword (rather than a spindle). And I put him in a warrior-type culture; here's a guy who can't relate to any of the male figures in his society, not to mention he has nothing to do all day, and he's really brassed off about it all.

The witch was young and sophisticated and rather ruthless. She was one of the first female characters I created who wasn't just me dressed up in someone else's clothes (I was about 20 at the time). Her motivation for cursing the prince was her hatred of war.

Even at the tender age of 20, I wasn't much of an anti-warmonger, but that didn't matter because the character wasn't me. The problem with giving the witch an abstract reason wasn't my lack of empathy; it was that the abstraction got boring and generalized.  

I realized that to make the story work as a story, I had to change her motivation. That is, I had to make the reason for her behavior personal. She hated war, but she hated war because it killed off her lovers. She wants one lover who will stick around for more than a couple of months. So, she curses the prince, and, since witches don't die and don't get old, as soon as he gets old enough, she takes him for her own. A sort of Chia Pet homegrown boyfriend!

The story wasn't a statement about war. It was about an individual's free will--how much the prince has or doesn't have. And for the story to work, the witch's motivation had to become something close and personal, rather than abstract and faraway. 

Along the same lines...

Every time I watch early X-Files, I am impressed again by how complete Mulder and Scully are as characters. One writing aspect the show got spot on was making Mulder's quest personal. He has a back-up group of conspiracy theorists, the Lone Gun Men, and although I believe one of them has a personal story behind his obsession, they are mostly obsessed for the sake of being obsessed--the abstract motivation: The Truth is Out There. And they make fine minor characters. But for a major character, abstract motivation isn't enough. 

By making Mulder's obsession personal (his sister) and then giving him Scully as a sounding board, the creators of X-Files gave the show the kind of relationship and existential grit that every show since has tried to copy. Scully becomes Mulder's safety net. He can allow himself to go crazy because he knows he has this cautious voice-of-reason to hold him down.

In terms of plot, I never did get the whole "Scully was given to Mulder to discredit his work and Mulder is allowed to continue to keep him from becoming a martyr" explanation since, as far as I'm concerned, dead men tell no tales. Mulder dead would be less of a problem to the bad guys than Mulder with Scully. I agree with Phil Farrand that Cigarette Smoking man is Mulder's dad; he came up with all that "can't make him a martyr" crap to keep Mulder alive. 

And that relationship at the personal level has grit. 

At its best, the show explored attitudes and complexities of belief. But it did it through focusing on the personal, not the abstract.