What do you do after graduating Hogwarts? Go to college.

Wow.
Don't get me going on Harry Potter. These books are not only an amazing read, but the series is dripping with meaning, metaphors, religious parallels (think Golden Compass, but subtler). Well, finally Yale agrees with me.
CNN has an article on Yale's new class: Christian Theology and Harry Potter.
"Harry Potter is unfairly maligned simply because of the audience for which it is intended. Children's literature is literature."
My college had a class on the literature of Stephen King but I never had time to take it. I think these classes are great ideas - they are like book discussion groups, but with a leader who has an expertise in subjects within the books. And anyone who has read a book with a class or book group knows that so much more information and insight is extracted when a group of people get together and share their opinions. If I reread a book that I had read years before it is an entirely different book to me. I think it is because we are always changing and growing, experiencing new things and focusing on different things throughout our life. When a book is read in a different context, it is a different book. It is the same with a group of people (in a discussion or a class) who all bring their individual experiences, concerns, passions or frustrations to their personal reading. Through these groups we can read the same book through other people's eyes. Like Harry Potter, it's a magical.

You think our fines are steep...

So I'm listening to Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko while driving to work this afternoon. The main charector, Matthew "Moose" Flanagan, lives on Alcatraz in 1935 with his family. His father is the prison electricion. Moose is trying to impress the other students in his new school with terrorizing tales of Alcatraz.
"That's the thing about the cell house library," I say, "it's a high-risk operation."
"Really?" a girl asks.
"Books are overdue," I explain, "they lock you up. They have a special cell for it. Overdue library book cell. If it's more than ten days overdue, they put you in the hole. Solitary confinement."
"No kidding?" the fat kid asks. I can see him fingering his library book, which I'm guessing is past due.
"Oh, yeah," I say.

A Princess and a Thane

A Charmed Life: Growing Up in Macbeth's Castle by Liza Campbell

Two things I try to keep in mind when reading memoirs: 1. Memoirs are based on the author's memory and impressions. That makes them a bit like historical fiction. 2. Memoirs are not autobiographies. They are bits and spurts of a life, not the events from cradle to grave. And so I am not as critical of A Charmed Life as I would be a straight work of fiction or nonfiction. The premise of this book completely intrigued me. Liza Campbell was born to Hugh, the twenty-fifth Thane of Cawdor Castle and Lady Catherine Campbell. Her family has occupied the castle that Shakespeare wrote into Macbeth since 1295. I loved the idea of medieval castles and traditions mixed with modern families (Liza was born in 1959). The book did not disappoint. Stories of Liza's ancestors make up a bulk of the book. As soon as a memory from childhood begins, she seems to slip into a fairy tale like story of a great-great-grandfather. I enjoyed the history but I wanted to know more about Liza and her family. Near the end of the book a more complete and concise story line of Liza's late teens and twenty's unfolds.
One of the best aspects of the book is Liza's vocabulary and descriptions. While I found the story line a bit jumpy, so many perfectly placed words (or ones that sent me to my dictionary) made reading a pleasure. A few examples of her descriptions: "Bagpipes are like a handsome man with halitosis: rather fabulous from far away, but taxing up close". On the tendency towards alcoholism in her family, "If you shake the family tree, bottles fall out."
This book, dedicated to her two children, seemed a written history of the Campbells for the next generation. I was happy to peek at the family files - Liza did not hold back and the book had a sad yet satisfying ending, with a dramatic turn of events and an explanation as to why her dad, the Thane, was a royal jerk most of his life.


The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory




Everyone seems to know Philippa Gregory's name since her best-seller, The Other Boleyn Girl, was made into a movie. I enjoyed the book and the movie but I took both with a grain of salt ... not only do we actually know very little about Mary, Anne's sister, but the facts that we do know were bent and reshaped to fit the plot of the novel. Not that there is anything wrong with that. We must just keep in mind that we are reading historical FICTION. That being said, The Constant Princess was mostly enjoyable. I find Catherine of Aragon (Henry VIII's first wife) a very interesting woman in history but I think that readers who do not have an already established interest and knowledge in her and her time period may not enjoy the book. Philippa is good at writing romantic historic fiction but this novel goes on forever. Points are made three times in a row. Dialog goes on for pages. Catherine sits in her chapel and talks to her dead husband ad nausuem. On top of that, Philippa has taken some hotly debated events and made them plot. For example, Catherine of Aragon was originally married to Arthur, Henry's older brother. Arthur, a sickly young man, died soon after their marriage. Catherine was then married to Henry because, the story goes, Arthur was so sickly that the marriage was never consummated. Of course, we do not know for sure what happened, but that seems to be the story everyone is sticking to. Everyone but Philippa. In The Constant Princess Arthur and Catherine have a hot, passionate marriage are are madly in love. When Arthur is on his death bed, he makes Catherine promise to deny ever loving him or making love to him so that she can marry his brother and become Queen. It's a little too far fetched for me. I feel the historical "facts" (such as they are) were stretched a little too far for a plot that is mostly ... well, boring.
I would only recommend this book to those who love this time period and want to read any and all related literature ... and keep in mind the FICTION in Philippa's historical fiction.

In her defense, Philippa's website has a nice essay on her novels and "fact and fiction."

More Awards ...

How exciting, more awards! The 2008 longlist for the Orange Broadband Prize was announced. The Orange Prize was founded 13 years ago and awards a work of fiction written by a woman. My library only has about half of the books (most of them are first novels) and I am ashamed to say that I haven't read any of them at all! Has anyone out there read any of the nominees?

Hello HUGO

The 2008 HUGO nominations were announced yesterday. HUGOs are awarded to works of science fiction, and before you say, "Eck, I don't like sci fi" (which is what I said) look at some of the authors and books on the list ... Michael Chabon, Harry Potter, Neil Gaiman, The Golden Compass and so on. Winners will be announced August 9th.

More New Old Books

I very much liked Irène Némirovsky's Suite Francaise. Her characters and scenes were written with details that made them true-to-life, hilarious, or heartbreaking; but it was her ability to transport me to France during the German occupation that made the book so intense and intriguing. Like Sarah Water's Night Watch, it is the small drama that happens within families and couples during times of war and crisis that brings the events of history into focus for me. Ironically, Suite Francais was not historical fiction when Irène wrote it, but it is now. However, the story of the author's life is the most fascinating part of the book. I suppose the magic of old books is that the author is long dead but is still able to whisper in your ear. The fact that this author was killed in Auschwitz during the peak of her literary career makes her writing all the more somber and sorrowful. There is now a number of her writings in publication, including a collection of her earliest essays called David Golder, The Ball, Snow In Authun, The Courilof Affair which was reviewed in the New York Times.

Ladies of History

March is Women's History Month so I have done a lovely display at my library and am devoting my reading time to books on great women in history. Of my current books, one is much better than I anticipated and one is a bit of a disappointment so far.

The Constant Princess is the second book I've read by Philippa Gregory. I very much enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl but took into account what is was ... British history in soap opera form. Which is great. And the movie was great too ... even if some of the facts were wrong and there was a huge amount of bodice ripping. But Tudor-era English royalty is one of my favorite subjects (especially anything surrounding Henry VIII) in fiction or nonfiction. So when I saw that The Constant Princess was a historical fiction account of Catherine of Aragon - Henry's first wife - I was thrilled.

To be fair, I am only about 1/4 of the way through the book but I am finding Gregory's writing to be redundant. She makes a point but then goes on to make it again ... and often a third time. The story itself seems to follow fairly closely to what I have read about Catherine in the past (mostly Alison Weir ... the lady I am going to MEET in PERSON in May!! But more on that later) but the pace is slow and there are long stretches of Catherine talking to herself or writing to her mother instead of actual action. This book reads like a romance with a little too much detail about the wedding night but it is to be expected from Gregory, who was originally a romance writer. Her Wideacre series are historical romances that I have not read but I know others who have read them and were not fans. But I will stick with The Constant Princess and give my full report when I finish.

The other book that I am reading is Nefertiti: A Novel by Michelle Moran and so far it is fabulous. Ironically, Nefertiti reminds me of The Other Boleyn Girl more than The Constant Princess does. It is the story of Nefertiti, told through the eyes of her younger sister, Mutnodjmet. While Nefertiti marries and becomes Queen of Egypt, her sister tries to keep the peace in the family and in the clash between priests and pharaohs. This is not Pulitzer or Booker prize winning novel, but it is very well done. Considering how long ago these events took place (the Eighteenth dynasty - 1570-1320 B.C.) and the limited amount of actual facts we have about Nefertiti and her family, the story is rich and full of detail.

I recently read The murder of Tutankhamen - A True Story by Bob Brier. He reasoned that Tut had been murdered - and explained how and by who. It was a quick, fun, enlightening non-fiction read but it still didn't transport me to Egypt like Nefertiti does. For the first time I can really see her, putting on her wig and lining her eyes with kohl.