Blog-chive1
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November 16, 2007 Beowulf?
I don't know why it surprises me, this new Robert Zemeckis
Beowulf film. We've seen movie adaptations (albeit some
very loose) of Mark Twain and Hardy and Hawthorne and
Maugham and Cooper and D. H. Lawrence and Fitzgerald
and...well, lots. Heck, we've seen celluloid Virginia Woolfe,
so why not Beowulf?
The short answer is it's a poem. What next (harrumph), a
letterbox version of The Wasteland? But there's a lot of
action in it, as befits these Viking warrior type poems, so let
that pass.
Maybe instead it's the recollection of the scene of
attempted rape in The Scarlet Letter, which Hawthorne never
wrote and the sole purpose of which could only have been
to capitalize on Demi Moore's sexy image. And The Last of
the Mohicans? It was exciting and Daniel Day-Lewis was
cute.
But finally, I think it's the sensation I recall of opening my
mouth into an oval, sort of like those papier mache
Christmas choristers, to read from Chaucer in Middle
English, to hear it spoken aloud once more: "Whan that
Aprile with his shoures soote/The droute of March hath
perced to the roote..."
I can't recall reading Beowulf in Old English, although I'm
sure I must have been asked to stumble over part of it at
least. I'm not sure, but I think I'd rather do that now than
have it interpreted for me in images the saga masters never
meant in a medium that would have required less of them.
It's not the visualization of Fafnir the dragon that has kept
alive the tales of the Volsunga Saga or the Nibelungenlied,
but the force of language to reach across centuries and
inspire us to images of our own making. Not just to watch,
but to participate. Not just to see, but to create.
November 10, 2007 Google me
Okay, so my techno-genius friend Carl said I must blog. "Go
forth, my child, and blog. Be fruitful and blog mightily." He
explained why I needed to do this, but the explanation
whizzed past my ears like so many fortuitously dodged
bullets. I just did as I'd been told.
When I'd finished, it was time to send the unassuming little
thing out into the world--something about search engine
bots. So I told another friend about this brave new venture
on which I'd embarked and promised to send a link to the
appropriate page.
My email crossed his. "Never mind," he wrote, "I Googled
you."
"I beg your pardon? You did what to me?"
"I Googled you."
We laughed--using the requisite LOLs--as much at the
novelty as anything else, giggling furtively in the manner of
children who think they've gotten away with something.
But there was also about it an element of shared wonder. To
be Googled is no phenomenon for those whose feet are
permanently on the upper rungs of the Bestseller ladder. But
for those of us whose notoriety may have been confined to
lurid tales of bouncing spit wads off the bald pates of high
school science teachers, the possibility of worldwide
recognition is a curious thing. One need only click on "I'm
feeling lucky."
November 9, 2007 "Bad" reviews
Writers want to be read. That's why we do it, write. And we love
it when our readers sing our praises. But the praises may not
always be what we most need to hear.
Now, with the exception of some close kin who have been
forthcoming with their comments, and the good-natured
observation of a friend who noted the absence of gay characters,
the feedback I've received on Deadly Crossings has been very
flattering indeed. So much so that I suspect most people would
walk on their tongues before they'd say anything unflattering.
So it was with some surprise, and mixed feelings, that I listened to
one recent assessment. I had attended a signing for another local
author who had graciously attended mine. I had greeted two
ladies whom I'd met at my own signing a few weeks earlier, and as
we all mingled, wine and chocolate-topped mini pretzels
balanced in graceful hands, one of the ladies, a librarian by
profession, sidled up to me. She'd enjoyed the book, she said.
Hadn't been able to figure out whodunnit, and that was good.
But, she added, she didn't like Sophie because she was so whiney.
When I'd replaced my eyeballs in their sockets, I began to laugh
and explained that I had made Sophie that way on purpose to
protest the proliferation of perfect and perfectly competent
heroines in contemporary fiction.
"But I just wanted to slap her," she said.
"Well, yes," I replied, "I want to slap her too." The difference is, I
can.
I don't know why it surprises me, this new Robert Zemeckis
Beowulf film. We've seen movie adaptations (albeit some
very loose) of Mark Twain and Hardy and Hawthorne and
Maugham and Cooper and D. H. Lawrence and Fitzgerald
and...well, lots. Heck, we've seen celluloid Virginia Woolfe,
so why not Beowulf?
The short answer is it's a poem. What next (harrumph), a
letterbox version of The Wasteland? But there's a lot of
action in it, as befits these Viking warrior type poems, so let
that pass.
Maybe instead it's the recollection of the scene of
attempted rape in The Scarlet Letter, which Hawthorne never
wrote and the sole purpose of which could only have been
to capitalize on Demi Moore's sexy image. And The Last of
the Mohicans? It was exciting and Daniel Day-Lewis was
cute.
But finally, I think it's the sensation I recall of opening my
mouth into an oval, sort of like those papier mache
Christmas choristers, to read from Chaucer in Middle
English, to hear it spoken aloud once more: "Whan that
Aprile with his shoures soote/The droute of March hath
perced to the roote..."
I can't recall reading Beowulf in Old English, although I'm
sure I must have been asked to stumble over part of it at
least. I'm not sure, but I think I'd rather do that now than
have it interpreted for me in images the saga masters never
meant in a medium that would have required less of them.
It's not the visualization of Fafnir the dragon that has kept
alive the tales of the Volsunga Saga or the Nibelungenlied,
but the force of language to reach across centuries and
inspire us to images of our own making. Not just to watch,
but to participate. Not just to see, but to create.
November 10, 2007 Google me
Okay, so my techno-genius friend Carl said I must blog. "Go
forth, my child, and blog. Be fruitful and blog mightily." He
explained why I needed to do this, but the explanation
whizzed past my ears like so many fortuitously dodged
bullets. I just did as I'd been told.
When I'd finished, it was time to send the unassuming little
thing out into the world--something about search engine
bots. So I told another friend about this brave new venture
on which I'd embarked and promised to send a link to the
appropriate page.
My email crossed his. "Never mind," he wrote, "I Googled
you."
"I beg your pardon? You did what to me?"
"I Googled you."
We laughed--using the requisite LOLs--as much at the
novelty as anything else, giggling furtively in the manner of
children who think they've gotten away with something.
But there was also about it an element of shared wonder. To
be Googled is no phenomenon for those whose feet are
permanently on the upper rungs of the Bestseller ladder. But
for those of us whose notoriety may have been confined to
lurid tales of bouncing spit wads off the bald pates of high
school science teachers, the possibility of worldwide
recognition is a curious thing. One need only click on "I'm
feeling lucky."
November 9, 2007 "Bad" reviews
Writers want to be read. That's why we do it, write. And we love
it when our readers sing our praises. But the praises may not
always be what we most need to hear.
Now, with the exception of some close kin who have been
forthcoming with their comments, and the good-natured
observation of a friend who noted the absence of gay characters,
the feedback I've received on Deadly Crossings has been very
flattering indeed. So much so that I suspect most people would
walk on their tongues before they'd say anything unflattering.
So it was with some surprise, and mixed feelings, that I listened to
one recent assessment. I had attended a signing for another local
author who had graciously attended mine. I had greeted two
ladies whom I'd met at my own signing a few weeks earlier, and as
we all mingled, wine and chocolate-topped mini pretzels
balanced in graceful hands, one of the ladies, a librarian by
profession, sidled up to me. She'd enjoyed the book, she said.
Hadn't been able to figure out whodunnit, and that was good.
But, she added, she didn't like Sophie because she was so whiney.
When I'd replaced my eyeballs in their sockets, I began to laugh
and explained that I had made Sophie that way on purpose to
protest the proliferation of perfect and perfectly competent
heroines in contemporary fiction.
"But I just wanted to slap her," she said.
"Well, yes," I replied, "I want to slap her too." The difference is, I
can.