Consumed by the Hunger Games

It happened.

I read it.

I'm captivated.

The best part? Both of my sisters and my husband have blazed through the first book within a couple weeks of each other. Yes, my sisters and my husband are reading the same books at the same time.

This has never happened, and I think I can say with confidence that it will never happen again.

girlfriday to Walden Media: Make Us Care

I'm BORED, Walden Media.
(Spoilers ahead, blah, blah, blah.)

Dare to imagine (you're filmmakers after all), that Lewis' fan base (that means the people who pay to see the movies) actually love the stories (even the weaker ones). We're shocked and sad with the children when they discover they're exploring the RUINS of their own beloved Cair Paraval. We thrill at Aslan's first apperance and wince when Lucy doesn't follow him. We wonder at the dumb beasts the talking animals of Narnia have become (not because they were TREATED like dumb animals but because they were corrupted). We're pleased when the true Narnians use the horn in the hour of deepest need, not when they fell off a horse.

Characterizations of Peter and Caspian are completely off. Honorable, humble, and wise young men are reduced to bickering, arrogance, and selfishness.

We want to really know Corneilus, punch Nikabrik, root for Caspian, admire Lucy, love Peter, loathe the hag, yearn for Aslan.

We do not want to see Lord of the Rings Lite. We're going to these movies because we're devoted to C.S. Lewis and his Narnia. Battle scenes with giant birds and clashing swords. Yawn. Mythical creatures, angry trees, magic water, old man, drown the baddie...oh, sorry, I drifted off.

[It]ignores this theme completely and shows none of the joy and beauties of Narnia. The Telmarines want to keep control of Narnia; the Narnians want to overthrow them. That's the only story-- no underlying nobility or goodness is evident.

Caspian the Spaniard, oops, Telmarine, is the rightful heir of Narnia. Who is he and why do we care? The Pevensies were called back but to what end? (To claim superiority, squabble and get kissy face, the movie suggests.)

Whatever the movie was, it wasn't Lewis' Prince Caspian.

This film is essentially a vehicle for PG-rated fantasy action, with very little causing you to root for the good guys. Douglas Greshem needs to exert better quality control on any future Narnia projects.

This review was written by me (large letters) and this guy at NarniaFans.com. (in bold).

GO THERE and post your review. You can read my husband's here, Hob's at White Noise here.

Physician, Heal Thyself

'And here also is your brooch, Pippen,’ said Aragorn. ‘I have kept it safe, for it is a very precious thing.’

‘I know,’ said Pippen. ‘It was a wrench to let it go; but what else could I do?’

‘Nothing else,’ answered Aragorn. ‘One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters. You did rightly.’

from The Two Towers

Thanks, Laura.

Help a Girl Out

What's the good of a blog if you can't ask for help from your readers from time to time?

There are a couple of things I'm looking for:
1. Does anyone have any good resources for large-print books? I'd like to find Harry Potter in large print as well as the Trinity Hymnal (yes, both of these). Anything you know about a good place to buy books where the print is enlarged for the seeing-impaired would be really helpful.
2. I'd like to find an aerobics DVD that someone has used and actually recommends. It would be nice to have something to pop in in the mornings to get a little workout ("little" = 20 minute sessions or so).

Email me or put something in the comments if you can help me on either of these.

Thanks gang.

ADDED: How do I get rid of these annoying white borders on my gifs? Deleting "border=0" doesn't do it.

Sunday

I don't feel well today. Besides the physical evidence that something is wrong, I watched the entire Colts/Chargers game with my husband this afternoon.

It's nearly 8:00 and I'm not really better. I suspect I have some sort of sinus crap, which I don't recall ever having and I could have lived the rest of my life without it. (Still beats a stomach ache in my book.)

But tonight, after my husband has obliged me by giving me a foot rub, we're watching the first installment of the Masterpiece Theatre* Complete Works of Jane Austen on PBS.

That's really what this post was about. To tell you about it, in case you hadn't heard.

ADDED: We watched it, and we were disappointed. They crammed Austen's Persuasion into an hour and a half. That's shorter than the 1995 full-length feature, which was only 109 minutes long!

I feel misled. The Series is called "The Complete Works of Jane Austen," which implies a comprehensive look at her works, not highlights. I expected a masterpiece, a la the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice (which can't be topped, and PBS has wisely decided to air an encore performance rather than try).

Thankfully, as JEB points out in the comments, Captain Wentworth was easy on the eyes.

*Theatre is too sophisticated for today's audiences. The program is now called just Masterpiece.

Second Time Around

I've noticed a trend in my reading habits: I am re-reading books I read as a child. Do you do this?

"Youth is wasted on the young." I actually said that today, heaven help me. Is children's literature wasted on the young? Of course not. And yet (how do I articulate this?) as children we haven't experienced so much of what gives a good writer his voice.

While an author may not write a children's book about death (though some do), their writing is colored by their own passage through grief. As adults we can share in this thoughtful coloring, but as children, most of us haven't grieved deeply. Our fragile world alternates between the solid ground of need and want and the eternal reach of our imaginations.

Put another way, we haven't experienced life in a way that gives rise to a true appreciation of metaphor, nuance and wit.

So paradoxically, the writers that shape our young mind and form our earliest impressions of good literature are expressing ideas, thoughts and feelings that are, in fact, still forming. How strange!

Children should be reading the classics, and as soon as they're able (with some exceptions). They may not understand them, but reading them will help them understand.

As adults, oughtn't we to give those books a second look?

I conclude that reading through the lense of life experience is a recovery of missed joys.

What have you been re-reading?

Is The Crucible still relevant as a cautionary tale?

For those who do not know what I do in my regular existence, I am a professional actor, a writer and dramaturg. I also do windows and laundry, when necessary. Most recently, I finished a short run as John Proctor in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, and I think it worth noting that Miller's show is, in its own way, a small slice of genius. If you have never read it, I highly recommend you do so; if you have never seen it played, run, don't walk, to the theatre. It is that powerful, and for theatre, that important.

The Crucible, essentially, is an exploration of the nature of hysteria. If the general public begins to bleat like sheep and start searching for reasons to explain their lot in life or their fears, there are those who will be all too ready to take advantage of the situation. The Salem Witch Trials were as much about evening scores and acquiring land as they were about searching out any putative witches and doing away with them. As is true in most human endeavors, it is always useful to follow the money or discover who stands to gain when this or that happens. And is someone does show profit or gain, you can be fairly certain that it was intentional. For myself, reading the play brought to mind immediately the McMartin PreSchool cases in the early 1990s. For those going "er, what?," please check here.

The echoes with Salem and the way in which the law and the courts were manipulated is uncannily similar. At any rate, however much the Witch Trials had to do with religion on the surface, they had almost nothing to do with God, the Bible, or much of anything else pertaining to Heaven...in much the same way that the Inquisition had more to do with power than saving the souls of its victims.

The lesson of The Crucible is simple, but interestingly powerful: we must be on our guard. Hysteria and the lust for power it provokes are historical in nature, yes, but they are also as immediate as yesterday's headlines or today's arrest blotter. People seek scapegoats, and, if necessary, those in power will supply them.

Unless we stop them. Immediately. Without qualm, pause or wasted motion. We have far more to fear from hysteria than we do from anything that might serve to cause it.