Equal Rites finished; Neuromancer started; Neil Gaiman in Tuscaloosa

Equal Rites was my favorite in the Discworld series so far. It's the story of a girl who is a wizard. In the Discworld women become witches and men become wizards for no reason other than that's the way things have always been. Which means, of course, that a change will require nothing less than a paradigm shift.

Feminism is definitely a major theme. One of my favorite moments in the book is when Esk's Granny Weatherwax faces off against a wizard, and they have a confrontational discussion about wizard magic (which is showy and powerful) versus witch magic (which is practical and useful - and also seldom used because psychology often works better). The conversation reminded me of nothing so much as what an argument between a doctor and a nurse might be like in an age when female doctors and male nurses were less common, with the nurse pointing out that while the doctor has his big important degrees and surgeries and diagnoses, the nurses are the ones who do all the work of actually helping people (which is true today as well, even though the fields are more gender-balanced).

It's very funny, and I think Pratchett was getting really comfortable with the Discworld and its possibilities at this point. Unlike the previous two novels, Equal Rites had a specific plot direction; the girl wizard Esk needs to get into the Unseen University, the school for wizards. I think when I originally began reading the first Discworld novel, The Color of Magic, I gave it up because the story was sort of a sprawled out thing (that, and because I was reading numerous things at once). I had a hard time focusing on the story. My second reading of The Color of Magic was far more rewarding, but it is nice to read a Discworld story that takes a more direct approach from beginning to end.

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I've decided to break from the Discworld series for now, and I've started Neuromancer by William Gibson. This is yet another one of the books that I'd tried to start reading at some point prior to taking on this project, and stopped reading because I didn't get into it. Upon taking it up again, I read the first 60 pages of it in one sitting. This is a very good start considering the speed with which I normally read. It is also the result of trying to burn an audiobook to iTunes while in a library, and learning that the laptop needed me to load some critical updates or else it would insist on crashing repeatedly all day long. It just goes to show that if you want to get a lot of reading done, all you really need is 3 hours in a library and a computer that requires 4 restarts and a number of downloads before it decides to cooperate with you.

Also, I think there is a lesson to learn from all the books I half-read before and have now started again to find that they are actually interesting. The lesson is that I don't multitask as well as I think I do.

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I got to see Neil Gaiman on his recent visit to Tuscaloosa, where he read several short stories and did a Q&A. He even read one story that I am not familiar with, which is impressive because I tend to be on top of these things. I don't think I could sum up the evening as well as he did, so I'll just provide this link to his blog, and note that he's right, we do read and we do need more authors to visit. We especially need him to visit again, preferably with a signing next time.

Faster than a Speeding Blog

I finished The Light Fantastic, and I'm now half-way into Equal Rites. I am reading faster than the speed of blog.

I don't have much to say about The Light Fantastic. It was good, it was funny, it made me want to start the next book in the Discworld series, and so I did.

I think I will have a bit to say about Equal Rites, especially regarding how it reminds me of Good Omens, the book that Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman co-wrote. Perhaps also regarding feminism, which has been on my mind a lot lately.

Specifically, Neil Gaiman was quoted, perhaps incorrectly, by the New Yorker as saying that he was "nobody's bitch". This resulted in him being accused of using a misogynist slur and of being a part of the "rape culture", which led to lots of emails sent to Gaiman explaining that "having used that phrase undid all the good I'd ever done by writing positive women, supporting RAINN etc, because it showed that I was minimising the horror of rape and revealing my underlying misogyny."

In the world of the Internet, it's a dead issue. It was talked about over a week ago, and in Internet time that's about 6 months. I bring it up now not in the hopes of you all rushing over to the apparent source of this mess to add your own comments, but because it's an intro to my own essay, titled What the Hell has Happened to Feminism?

Actually, "what the hell has happened to feminism?" is the title, the introductory statement, the full argument, and the closing statement of my essay.

I've used the "not your bitch" phrase a few times in my life, and I've never been accused of perpetuating the misogynist culture. I'd be really offended if I was accused of that. I don't think you can rightly accuse one person's words of determining another person's actions.

Mostly, I keep wondering if we feminists don't have better things to do. This seems like a classic example of a group being so busy arguing amongst themselves that they never accomplish anything. Here in America, women still don't always get equal pay for equal work. Prison sentences for rape are still ridiculously short. I think the important issues are the ones where you can actually change the way things are. I am also not into the whole "changing the dialogue" method of feminism, because that's just a touchy-feely way of saying "changing the way people talk," which is just a friendly way of saying "speech and thought control." Change laws, and hopefully a few people will stop to ponder why it was important that they be changed. Tell people what to think and say, and they will only get pissed off at you.

Not to mention, if feminism wants me to choose between them and free speech, they are going to lose me.

Discworld: The Color of Magic finished, The Light Fantastic begun.

There's one big problem with me taking on this reading list; I am a slow reader. I always have been. I sometimes wonder how long it will take me to finish this list.

For that reason, and because of the holidays, it took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to finish The Color of Magic, which is the first in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Over a month.

Having said that, I checked The Light Fantastic (book 2 in the same series) out at the library one week ago, and I'm already half way through it. This is the equivalent of a normal reader getting half-way through a book in one day.

I really like these books. I tried reading The Color of Magic once before, and it didn't stick with me so I gave up. I think the main thing is I was distracted and reading it at the same time as a whole bunch of comic books. But I also think I expected the Discworld series to be the fantasy version of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and it is not. I'm actually very pleased that it is not, because there's no need for imitation here, and you might wonder why it took Terry Pratchett 37 novels (soon to be 38) to accomplish what Douglas Adams managed in 5.

Discworld is a comical adventure of unlikely heroes. In fact, "unlikely heroes" doesn't really cover it. Unheroic heroes? People who aren't really trying but keep ending up being heroes? People who have no desire to be heroes but keep having heroic opportunities thrust upon them, no matter what they do to avoid it? It is frequently a parody of fantasy as a genre, and the genre is ripe for both the satire and the silliness that Terry Pratchett delivers. And that's just at the halfway mark of book 2.

The Color of Magic read like a very good starting point for things to come. I read the first book thinking I might just read Discworld novels between other novels, as a little break. I finished the first novel wanting more, so I started book 2. It's nice to read a series where I am hungry for the next book, instead of just trudging through in an effort to get it all over with (Chronicles of Narnia, I am looking at you).

So more updates as I progress. Maybe I'll actually make time to update the blog before getting half-way into book 3.

Side note: Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer's Disease. So does my grandmother. It's a bad disease. If you agree and feel like doing something about it, there are charities and funds out there that you can donate money to. You are intelligent people and you are on the internet right now, so I'm sure you can figure out the rest.

For Aunt Carol

My aunt Carol passed away earlier this week. In memory, I'd like to share a story about her.

When I was 12 or 13 years old, Aunt Carol got an MTV jacket.

This was in the 80s. MTV was, for someone my age at that time, the coolest thing on television. They actually played videos. The videos were amazing and creative, usually short stories acted out by famous musicians while they sang, as if it were a single scene from a pop musical. Cyndi Lauper, Boy George, Madonna - these were all new musicians. I watched MTV as much as I could. It was the best thing on TV.

So knowing someone with an MTV jacket while living this far south of New York City seemed like the coolest thing ever. You couldn't just buy them. In fact, she didn't. She knew a guy, he gave her the jacket.

Note: one thing about Aunt Carol is she knew lots of people. She knew a tour manager that handled major rock musicians. She knew Steve Wozniak back when he was working on creating his first personal computer (she had the prescience to tell him that no one would want a computer in their home). She once had a pub in England that Mick Fleetwood frequented - although she didn't know him, exactly. In typical fashion for Carol, she didn't recognize him. He was an odd stranger who would occasionally show up in her little country pub, and it wasn't until a friend of hers in the music business came in and said hi to Mick on his way up to the bar - which led her to ask him who the odd stranger was since everyone knew he wasn't from their town - that she learned that her mystery patron was a celebrity.

So she had this MTV jacket that some impossible and fabulous person gave her, and when I laid eyes on it I couldn't imagine a greater symbol of cool. I'd only seen VJs on MTV wear those jackets. I told her that I wanted one. She apologized and said that it had been given to her, so she had no way of getting another one. The explanation went over my head. If it were something that she'd bought for a ridiculous sum of money, I would have understood. If people were just giving them away, then how hard could it be to get another one?

For Christmas that year, she gave me a box set of books, which contained The Hobbit and the full Lord of the Rings trilogy. I remember she included a card with the gift, which I no longer have, but I recall that it said that this was a better gift than an MTV jacket.

I'd like to tie this up neatly and say that Carol is the reason that I read lots of books - but that's not true. I'd like to say she's the reason why I often give books as gifts - but that's not true either. I do that because I like to read and I like to pass on books that I enjoy to others, which I'm certain is what she was doing when she gave me the Tolkien box set. Mainly, I want to say she was right; the books were a better gift. I'm glad I still have them on my bookshelf now, instead of the memory of an MTV jacket that I would have discarded years ago.

New Book: The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett

My next book from the list is The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett. This is part of the 37-book series Discworld, and each book in the set is on the list. I should say, 37 and counting; book 38 is anticipated in 2010. I don't intend to read the entire series back to back (although who knows, that might happen).

I started reading The Color of Magic once before at the recommendation of a friend. I'd read Good Omens, and he told me I should really read the Discworld series. For some reason, I didn't get into it at that time and stopped reading. I think I was reading 2 or 3 things at once, and got so distracted from The Color of Magic that I wasn't really taking it in. This time around it is sinking in better, and I'm already well into the book only a week after starting it.

Also, it's very nice not to be reading Victorian literature.

Dracula: Review

The thing about reading Dracula is that you know the story. Sort of. You have heard it told numerous times. So you know what will happen. No spoiler warnings needed, none necessary.

What you are left with is the opportunity to take in this story in its original form, without the lens of interpretation guiding the angle at which you view it.

The original is quite good.

Dracula is a basic monster story. In fact, Dracula is my favorite type of monster - the unstoppable evil. Dracula is old, smart, powerful, and endlessly resourceful. For much of the novel, it's not known that Lucy seems ill because she's been attacked by Dracula. The word "vampire" is not used until about half way through the novel. Our heroes are at a loss throughout much of the novel, with no sense of how to defeat this creature. Science has failed them. Logic has failed them. It is the very essence of horror.

Likewise, Dracula is not an emotional character with complex motivations for his behavior. He's just a monster, a creature with a survival instinct, and that is all. Because he victimizes humans, he must be slaughtered. It's refreshingly simple in the modern world of too many vampires with too much angst.

Of course, this simplicity is not free from flaws. In Bram Stoker's world, a vampire is a creature that has not died when it naturally should have. A human soul is trapped in it, so while killing the creature is necessary in order to stop it from killing, it's also a kindness to the human that once was because its soul is finally released. Conveniently, once a person is fully vampire that trapped soul has no influence over the person. This allows Lucy's fiance Arthur to kill her without hesitation. Once Lucy is a vampire she still remembers her life. She still knows enough to use Arthur's love for her in an attempt to take him as a victim. But any goodness she has is gone, and so Arthur can hammer a stake into her breast without shame, revulsion, or guilt - and he feels none of these, even though at the very least he's desecrated the creepy animated corpse of his love.

Likewise, when Mina is slowly transforming into a vampire, she specifically chooses her husband Jonathan as her slayer in the event that she can't be saved. Why? Because it's best if someone you love kills you, in Stoker's bizarre logic.

Reading this, it becomes clear how many others have read Dracula, and felt bothered by these same problems, and decided to give vampires consciences and choices rather than simply making them creatures who feed by instinct. It's also clear why vampire slayers were also created in time. Because really, wouldn't it be better if Van Helsing slayed all these vampires and spared those who loved Lucy and Mina the most?

Of course, all this killing of your own leads to another main theme of the novel, which is madness. The mystery of what is happening to Lucy, Jonathan's account of what happened to him in Dracula's castle, the bizarre shifts in weather and strange behavior of animals, all these elements combine to make all the protagonist feel their grip on sanity loosen, with the exception of the stalwart Van Helsing. Fittingly there is a lunatic asylum at the center of the swirling madness, with Renfield at the eye of the storm performing a function very similar to the fool in King Lear, speaking truths that no one heeds because of his station in life.

There are a few other minor flaws in the novel. Mostly it suffers from a long-windedness that I find difficult to get past in most Victorian stories. I'm particularly annoyed that whenever action is taken to fight Dracula, everything is done twice, like a little practice run is needed before we really get down to business. I think Stoker wrote in this way to make it seem more realistic, but it just slows down the story unnecessarily, and often makes the characters seem reluctant to act. Of course, this same devotion to realism is the reason why our heroes are keenly aware that their job involves a lot of breaking and entering, and also an act that any witnesses would call murder, and so they have the practical dilemma of taking precautions to avoid being arrested.

In this way Stoker avoids the wild suspension of disbelief that some horror stories completely depend upon. It is clear why Dracula is not only the archetypal vampire story, but also an archetypal horror story.

I'll be taking a little break for a while because of the demands of Christmas, and also to read Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman. I am inspired by this novel to watch several film translations of the story, and so next up, I'll be posting about those films and my thoughts on all of that.

Twilight vampires: accidentally clever

I'm sidetracking a bit today to discuss some information I picked up recently about Twilight. I'm deep into the world of Dracula at this time, and meanwhile vampire stuff is everywhere with the release of the New Moon film, so it's not completely off-topic.

I'm not a fan of the Twilight series. In fact, my friend J'Mel's article about the first movie pretty much expresses how I feel about the entire thing. I, like J'Mel, don't think you need to read the series to know that it's awful. Besides, someone is already reading it on behalf of all of us who refuse to. I've also met a few writers who have very strong (negative) opinions about the series, including one who specifically told me she thought it was dangerous for tweens. I don't agree that the books are dangerous, I just don't think they are very good.

I was surprised to learn, however, that there is some precedence for the seemingly non-vampiric nature of Stephanie Meyer's vampires. A big complaint is that they lack fangs, which are the most universally accepted trait of vampires. As it turns out, the title character in the vampire story Carmilla has no fangs, and this is a story that preceded and inspired Dracula.

Additionally, on Here and Now yesterday they discussed how there is precedence for the vampire as a stereotype of Mormons. It turns out that vampire imagery was used to demonize the Mormons in the early 1900s. Stephanie Meyer is a Mormon in case you've missed out on this detail, and the scholars interviewed on Here and Now note that it's a clever flip of the old archetype that Meyer's vampires are creatures with morals and self-control instead of demonic monsters gathering multiple wives.

Of course, all of this would be much more impressive if Stephanie Meyer knew it before writing these novels. As they note on Here and Now, she's never watched any vampire movies or read Dracula, or watched any vampire-inspired movies - so she's never seen these films that vilify Mormons either. I doubt she's read the lesbian vampire story Carmilla for that matter. So the fact that her stories are a part of the history of vampire fiction in interesting ways doesn't make the stories themselves interesting. It also doesn't change the fact that she arrived here by accident, having no sense of the history of the genre to begin with.

And it certainly doesn't make up for the more sparkly, baseball-playing offenses she has committed.