sorcerer's stone

A blast from the past.

I've just re-read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the first time in 10 or 15 years. The last time I read a Harry Potter book, I was probably reading aloud to one of my kids, and they are both in their twenties, so I guess its been a while. I had a feeling that I'd come back to them to read them to myself at some point--it’s a different experience reading them aloud to your kids. That time was probably delayed by the huge impact the movies made on pop culture... and then the VHS tapes and DVDs, which they watched over and over until just a few years ago. I've been feeling a little saturated.

Then my niece decided to have a Harry Potter themed birthday/Hallowe'en party a few weeks ago, and it all came back: the fun, the characters, the adventure and the tragedy. So when I finished the sequel to The Three Musketeers, and I was looking for something fun and light,  suited for fall and early sunsets, Harry Potter seemed like a good choice. nice work on the party k!

I think I cranked through this book in three days. In fact, I've just finished the second one without finding a few minutes to write about this one. J.K. Rowling struck a chord with children and adults alike when she put together this story of an orphan boy of magical birth. Its got all of the hallmarks of a classic epic: heroism, mystery, adventure, coming of age, mentors, reluctant heroism/burden, true friendship, evil nemesis, special powers, and destiny, to name a few.*

Some have said that when they read Harry Potter as an adult, especially when the re-read the books, they find that Professor Dumbledore's treatment of Harry is shameful, even abusive, but to those who suggest that I will point out two things: its a story, and secondly, taking this stance is to project our value system of what is right and wrong, or perhaps more to the point, what is a appropriate for an eleven year old child to deal with, but Harry Potter is not a child from our world, and he doesn't live in our value system. Harry lives in a universe where children have immense power, and with great power, comes great responsibility. You and I are simply not equipped to judge, but I would suggest that Albus Dumbledore is.

For me, the latter point is the more cogent, and closer to my heart but maybe the former is all we really need. meybe y'all shud r'lax lil' bit

Yeah, so relax, and enjoy some Harry Potter. I'll come on back and write a little something about book two pretty soon, but in the meantime, I'll be visiting in on year three at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Read this book. To your kids if you can. I would suggest somewhere around 6 to 8 years old depending on how mature they are. The stories are complex and may be hard to follow for younger kids. Younger kids may also be frightened at some points, it does get tense now and again. Have fun!



* Check out The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell for more on this. (Its in my 'great's column to the right!)

twenty years after

Twenty Years After is a follow up or sequel to The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas, so its part of the D'Artagnan Romances, so called. The finale is titled The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later. From what I understand, this is a big book, and includes three parts (or at least is broken into volumes that way.) 

According to Wikipedia, the three parts of Ten Years Later are independently called:

• Part One: The Vicomte of Bragelonne (Chapters 1–93)
• Part Two: Louise de la Vallière (Chapters 94–180)
• Part Three: The Man in the Iron Mask (Chapters 181–269)

But more about that tome when I read it, back to Twenty Years After. The story is complex, as are all the Dumas stories I've read. He relies upon his readers a great deal, and given that this, like many of his novels, was written in series, he needed to help his readers keep the story straight, so he occasionally speaks directly to the reader, reminding us where we are in the story as we move along. This, along with the language, gives the story an old-timey feel, as you'd expect with a classic from this period.

Twenty Years doesn't move along as well as The Three Musketeers, the plot is good, solid, it just isn't as fun as The Musketeers. Dumas seems to struggle at some points to resolve issues he's written himself into, and while he does it, it doesn't feel as seamless as with Musketeers or Monte Cristo. In many way, it seems as though Dumas answered the call of his readers and gave them more Musketeers. Some, but not all, of the characters are the same. Where they are the same, they bring with them their old feelings, as one would expect, but occasionally, the intervening years has softened some of those feeling. It is those insights which make Dumas stand apart. Just writing in serial alone must be complex and require much forethought; its seems to me that the thought put into these stories is what elevates them.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I knew that The Man in the Iron Mask was a sequel to The Three Musketeers but I wasn't aware of this book until I bought that book, brought it to Italy, and discovered in the front matter that I was missing something. In a word: no wonder. This book was good, it just wasn't as good as it could have been, and I can see why it is generally overlooked. le yawn

I'll probably take a break from Dumas in the short term. This book took me three weeks (or more?) to read, and I could use a break. I also don't know where I put my copy of the next one, I think its in a box somewhere.

prince of fire

The Prince of Fire is a Gabriel Allon novel from 2005 I found on my bookshelf, so it’s from an earlier stage in the overall story arc. It was interesting to go back and read this installment after reading some of the more recent efforts; it read like a prequel, but one that wasn’t forced. If you have the opportunity to back and infill one of the holes in a series like this, I’d recommend it based on this experience.

Allon as a character is not yet completely jelled and his position in his organization and in the larger world of spycraft is still developing. Much of the history that goes into making Allon what he is in the current books is playing out here in this earlier story. Silva, as an author seems a little younger, perhaps more excited, and to me, it seems as though he’s not as jaded about the plight of Israel as he appears to be in this one.

Allon’s work as an art restorer and his personal relationships keep him human in a way not often shown in spy novels and I wonder if that’s because other authors in the genre don’t bother to fill in these details or if it’s just not possible to have a life that keeps one human, grounded and whole when you also have to do this job. Maybe it’s wishful that Allon’s only loss is his inability to create original works of art. I don’t remember the back story exactly—it wasn’t part of this story—but I think it may be that he doesn’t trust himself to create new art for fear of the horror that may emerge on the canvas.

Allon’s complexity is his strong suit as a character and it’s what brings me back to this series.

wife or hat?

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is perhaps the best title for a non-fiction book about neurology, ever. But what do I know, I'm more of a fiction reader.

Oliver Sacks is the man behind the voice of neurological wisdom for the radio show and podcast RadioLab. Or he was until his untimely death a few years ago from cancer. I miss his voice, and his thoughtful approach to working with folks who deal daily with the challenges of a mind that doesn't operate within (what we'd call) standard parameters. Sacks was called upon to explain complex neurological issues, and how the mind works for the folks at RadioLab, because of his ability to explain complex things in easy to understand terms. He demystifies the sciences of the mind with a subtle wit and a believe in humanity that is foremost in his thinking. His patients are first and always, just people who need help.

Sacks lays out his theses with well written, often charming characterizations of a series of patients, their challenges, and their triumphs; rare though they may be. Its clear in his writing that Sachs is much more interested in how his patients think about and deal with their own problems, than simply identifying what those problems are and applying the most popular treatment. He seems to be more interested in the person, and how they are dealing with the particular set of circumstances they deal with, and working with them to figure out the best way forward. Sometimes, what people need, is to just get back to some of their routine. The part of life that made them feel better, or whole, or normal.

Seems like good medicine.

Oliver Sacks would have been 85 this year.

origin

Dan Brown is at it again. I read Origin mainly because I was in Italy, out of books, and the shop in Sulmona that sold books in English is no longer.

Side note: The Great Recession, or World Economic Downturn, or whatever you want to call it, has not lifted in Italy as much as it has here. Where it started. thank you greedy, coke snorting, trust-fund, ivy-league, frat boys who blew up the world to make a few bucks on all of our backs*

I've read a couple of Brown's books, and like most people, I read The Da Vinci Code first, which was pretty good and then I went back and read Angels and Demons, which was better. I think I've said this before, Brown's character Robert Langdon is a pretty good character; he has the skill set as a professor of symbols or whatever to help solve the mysteries he stumbles upon, but the story arc in each of his stories is just too similar. Langdon doesn't begin a mystery solving venture until he stops of at the adventure store and picks up two things: a mysterious and shady quasi religious organization bent on murdering him before he solves this mystery (complete with some crazy, holy water guzzling psychopath with C-clamps on his junk) and a foxy lady to run around with and mansplain his brilliance to, for our benefit.

If you're a Dan Brown fan, I think you'll enjoy this. If not, then I'd say you could probably skip this one and never know the difference.



* Please note, I have no idea if the people who tranched up a bunch of bad loans, sold them as AAA and then broke the banks, Wall Street, and then the world, actually snorted cocaine, were funded by trusts, went to Ivy League schools, or were in fraternities. I'm pretty confident about the greedy part. And I actually feel pretty good about the rest of it too.

prague golem

The Prague Golem: Jewish Stories of the Ghetto is a small collection of stories about the Jewish Ghetto in Prague, edited by Harald Salfellner, and illustrated by Hugo Steiner. *

My oldest brought this back for me after traveling there for five days while we were in Italy. Both of my kids went and they loved it. The architecture, the food, the people, and the parks. They had a great time. I’ve heard that Prague is one of the few larger European cities that escaped significant damage during the wars. Based on their photos it seems legit.

This group of short stories tell the history of the Jewish community in Prague which goes back centuries. The story of the community is told though the history of its people, their sometimes rocky relationship with the sovereign, and tales of a few nearly superheroic figures. These stories especially we fun to read. They read like folk tales of Paul Bunyan or John Henry with a little Greek myth thrown in.

The writing is simple and accessible, like some committee had the idea to put these stories together and they hired someone’s nephew to bang them out. OR, this book was originally written in some other language and translated; Czech or something. Yeah, that sounds better, let me check... well, based on the Vitalis (publisher) website, this book is available in many languages and most indicate that it was translated from German, however the English version doesn't include a translator in the credits. Maybe Harald Salfellner is multi-lingual. sounds like he has more than one tongue. nope, not even going to look it up

The golem itself appears in a couple of the stories, and it apparently pretty well known as a taker of care when it comes to business. Seemed a little creepy to me, and maybe not a very wholesome solution to the rabbi's problems, but there you go.


* you can find this book on Amazon, and a bunch of other places, with the author listed as "U Zelezne Lavky" which is the name of a street in Prague as far as I can tell. 

wizard of oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum came free with a copy of The Man in the Iron Mask I bought at the bookstore to bring with me to Italy. Come to find out The Man in the Iron Mask is the last in a series of sequels Dumas wrote to follow up The Three Musketeers. It’s actually the third part of a long third book so I have a few thousand pages to read before I get to the Iron Mask.

Oz on the other hand was a pleasant surprise—it’s a completely different story than the cinematic superstar of the same name. The introduction (written by J. T. Barbarese along with end notes) were informative and included some helpful analysis which helped me to understand the differences between the book and the movie, as well the stage production which Baum helped to write. Apparently the stage production included some of the changes from the book which appear in the movie. The consensus being that production of some of Baum’s fanciful ideas may have been either too expensive or simply not possible at the time.

It was fun to read the story that so closely matches the movie we’ve all seen so many times but is different in both subtle and dramatic ways. Oz has been compared to both Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. Both have young heroines and both stories can be summarized as the fanciful dream of the main character. This is exactly the storyline of the movie version of Oz, but that is not how Baum envisioned the adventure of his heroine.

The writing is simple and geared toward his target audience. Baum also consciously avoided the terrors common to children’s literature to that point. Baum was also the first to break the mold of many standard children’s story characters, most importantly was the creation of good witches; a concept which didn’t exist in children's literature befor e Baum.

Read this book. Read it to your children and after a few weeks maybe watch the movie together.

reamde

Yeah, you read that right. Neal Stephenson's new book is called Reamde, altho to be fair the title is written thus on both the hardcover (book jacket) and the softcover versions:

REAMDE

I guess it makes it a little easier to read, and gives a clue as to the subject matter. Not surprisingly, Stephenson is again writing about computer/internet use, as he has a number of times in the past. This one is more Crytonomicon, and less Snow Crash. Reamde is not my favorite Stephenson book, but it did move right along and the characters were interesting to follow, even if I did have a pretty good idea how it was all going to end after a few hundred pages.

What Stephenson does so well is explain virtual world events and online activities so well that even though its not my thing, I was able to follow what he was describing and didn't feel bogged down by the technology. I'm sure that must be difficult and its one of the reasons I like his writing. All of the research and the back story is there. Its clear he's done the work, but it stays in the background (for the most part) and doesn't take over the story.

If you're a Neal Stephenson fan, I think you'll enjoy this one, if you're new to Stephenson, this isn't where I'd start, you're better off with Snow Crash, Diamond Age, or Seveneves.


[Note: I've been reading while on vacation, so I have some books, and my thoughts on them, stacked up. There are a few more to come when I get to them]

price of duty

This is the first book I've by Dale Brown. Brown is a former U.S. Air Force captain, where he was a bomber pilot, so in the tradition of writing what you know, Brown writes military fiction. Altho it may be more accurate to say that Price of Duty is military science fiction, as the tech the fighting forces are using is pretty advanced.

It took a few chapters for me to catch on to Brown's writing style, but that may be true for many writers, I guess I just don't keep track. Once I got into it, the story moved right along. Even though the military tech is extremely high-tech, the story seems inspired by today. The Russian president is a ex-KGB man with dictatorial control over his country and has begun a cyber-war against a group of European allies (read NATO) who have been left out to dry by the American President. This is particularly ironic given that I think Brown has based his character on Hillary Clinton* (as he has based his Russian dictator on Putin) and he has her leaving the European's to fend for themselves, even though she isn't a fan of the Russian president, who has a habit of denying involvement in actions that are clearly and demonstrably his responsibility. But who knows, the American president could be inspired by a combination of Clinton and Trump, or created wholly in the mind of Brown.

This book is a follow-up, or one of a series of books about this special force called Iron Wolf. This isn't the first in that series and I don't know where it falls, but I didn't find it listed on the author's website, so it could be that his site hasn't been updated in a while. The Iron Wolf secret weapon (and I don't think I'm giving too much away here) is a fighting robot, or exoskeleton, piloted by man who is on board rather than remote. This is not the first story with big fighting robots, and its not the first military story with big fighting robots, but this one does seem to view the exoskeleton idea in a more practical sense than some of the other visions out there.


* Its my impression that Brown was writing this during the run up to the election, and his choice for president was based on the polling at the time.