Literary Gibberish

For anyone living in the greater Mid-Atlantic region¹ we probably need do no more than post the book cover with no further comment:

And yet as a blog dedicated to both visual image and written word I should add my own boilerplate². In The Snowy Day Ezra Jack Keats reminds why snow is one of the cardinal joys of childhood. If, as we like to imagine, childhood is an idyll – a time to play without inhibition and wander around aimlessly – then what better venue for this than a city snowed to a standstill? We open the book and read that

One morning Peter woke up and looked out the window. Snow had fallen during the night. It covered everything as far as he could see.

This, we find, is a great boon to Peter who promptly sets out to take full advantage of his situation. Clad in his snowsuit and mittens, the snowy world is his oyster:

But as all great literature must do, The Snowy Day, keeps us grounded – reminding us that all of childhood is not idyllic. Challenges abide, even for the young and carefree. To wit: young Peter sees some older boys engaged in combat³ using against each other the very matter that the beneficent sky gods have showered upon them. Upon quick evaluation Peter decides it’s best to steer clear of the older boys for now.

Instead he decides to stockpile some of this frozen manna for a warmer day:

Ah, the bittersweet optimism of youth. Of course the snow brought inside vanishes into a liquid pool, but oh what a ride we had while it was with us!  I recommend a glance through The Snowy Day for all of us who view these mountains of snow through adult eyes. For those of us who dig, and dig, and dig, just to free our vehicles for the next day’s labor. For those of us who sigh at the thought of being cooped up inside with those we love⁴ for hours on end. For those of us faced with this:

But yearning to re-live this:

Happy reading, and stay warm!

^{1 Or, you know, watches CNN or the Weather Channel…
2 Come on folks, this is another Caldecott. These books should recommend themselves
3 Mortal Combat, one can only assume.
4 and who inevitably drive us nuts with extended time in close quarters.}

What’s that they say about being good for the goose? If you want to survive Endless Migration you’d better be quick or those nasty planes, storms, helicopters and blimps will surely get your gander.

Your task is pretty simple. As flock leader your job is collect wayward geese who will obediently follow you in the classic flying V pattern. Unfortunately it looks like the air traffic controllers are on strike and Reagan isn’t around to order in the scabs. Look out above and below for all manner of flying craft and storms that will slow your progress. As your get deeper into your journey the air gets thicker and even the military gets involved¹.

What gives this game a little more replay value than most dodge-and-dash avoidance games is the ability to earn upgrades. Faster wings, friendlier geese and even temporary invincibility are rewards for perseverance and each upgrade it worth it’s weight in feathers. Earn enough points for all of them and you’re a lean, mean flying machine.

So watch your back, protect your flock and let the feather’s fly! How long will you last in Endless Migration?

^{1 look out for quickly-vanishing stealth bombers!}

In the realm of oddball comedic writing that staunchly resists easy categorization Jasper Fforde is king.  The bulk of his work consists of re-imagining such literary lives as those of Humpty Dumpty, Jane Eyre, Miss Havisham and others.  Fforde creates for his characters richly described worlds with labyrinthine systems of rules and social strata. In short, he makes hay of literary tropes, characters and historical “what-ifs”, all the while paying homage to the giants of the English language on whose shoulders he stands.

Shades of Grey is in some ways a bird of *ahem* a different color. However, fans of Fforde’s work will feel at home with his zany approach to reality that keeps the reader just off balance enough to make a straightforward story feel like a bit of a wild ride.

The curtain opens on young Eddie Russet who is a “Red” by dint of his being able to see color primarily in the (you guessed it) red frequencies of the color spectrum. Eddie’s world is color-0bsessed and we find that class hierarchies follow from left to right the familiar acronym ROYGBIV where Reds are the lower middle class, Yellows the administrative class, Greens the privileged middle class and Blue-Indigo-Violets forming what there is of an Aristocracy. Oh, and the Greys are the proletariat.

We also see quickly that there is room for mobility – a Red may well marry a Blue and sire offspring who see the world through genteel purple colored lenses. And this results in something of a social bartering system wherein “strong reds” may marry into a declining blue family to solidify the line. In exchange for an appropriate amount of credits, of course.

As in his other works, Fforde builds a world with strict rules that must not be broken and strange circumstances that dictate the activity of his characters lives. Why, we ask, are spoons in such short supply? How do the residents of this world mine scraps from a disappeared civilization¹ and then pipe it into towns to color gardens, street signs and buildings? Why is it that a particular swatch of color has the power to heal, harm, enthrall or even euthanize its viewer?

As in all dystopian visions the world Eddie Russet inhabits is broken. As in all bildungsromans Eddie progresses from naivete to knowlege.  The name of progress is attached to regressive policies that benefit the powerful and oppress the lower class. The denouement of the book is a social awakening that a Washington Post reviewer points out is evident from hundreds of pages away. But rather than grouse that this is a disappointment, I propose that we celebrate an old tale originally told.

The plot of Shades of Grey is well worn but the execution gives it some shine. Fans of Fforde will feel at home in this novel and new readers will, perhaps, be drawn in². Is this a Staggering Work of Genius? No, but it’s a heck of a good tale not only about social dysfunction but also about coming of age, of love and of loss.  Best of all it will keep you reading through these cold winter nights and snowy winter days that seem to be playing in an endless loop around these parts this winter. Happy reading!

^{1 Our own modern world, dear reader.
2 Surely herr Fforde hopes so, as this is the first volume of a planned trilogy.}

In What’s That Noise? William Carman tackles that ever vexing question – just what exactly is it that keeps going Bump! in the night? Except in Carman’s rendition, it’s more like going “GGGGBBBBrrrrrvvccxxxxgggggiiiinnnnnbbbbbggg” in the night. Our hero is a young man who hears a noise and intrepidly seeks its source, giving the book a title in his incessant query “What’s that noise!?”

What indeed? The young lad’s imagination is fueled by everyday objects in his house and rendered on the page in fantastical black and white after each suggestion is proffered. His thoughts range from the mundane (are the neighbors mowing the lawn?) to the outlandish (is it a UFO landing in my back yard?) and even the truly terrifying (it sounds like a bear in mom and dad’s room!). Carman even nods to the motif of monster in the closet and throws in a slightly surreal octopus sighting.

And like all decent bedtime stories this one ends happily. No, it’s not a bear in Mom and Dad’s room – it’s just Dad snoring the night away oblivious to all the commotion he’s causing throughout the household.  All is well as we turn the final page and see Mom, Dad and son sleeping peacefully and snore-free on the book’s endpaper.

Thus ends another recommendation¹. The art and story both stand out in this one and you’ll want to head over to this interview at Seven Impossible Things and to William Carman’s own plot of real estate on the web to see more. Until next time…

^{And almost footnote free. You didn’t think you’d get off that easy did you?}

Modern day American prophet Wendell Berry declares to us that “work done thankfully and well is prayer.” The Apostle Paul suggests to us that we should “pray without ceasing.” Are we then to infer that taking a short recreational break is verboten? Nonsense!  Please amuse yourself¹ with Grayscale – a maze puzzle game of increasing complexity.

Your aim, as ever, is to get from Point A to Point B. Follow your chosen path, rotate the gears that stand in your way and revel in your success when you achieve Nirvana². So hip, hip and Cheerio to you my dear readers. Enjoy your weekly diversion and stay tuned for further updates.

^{1 always in moderation, of course.
2 enlightenment is fleeting as the next level inevitably presents itself}

Clive Thompson, frequent Wired contributor and blogger at Collision Detection reports that according to website Hunch “TV and education are almost perfectly inversely correlated.”

I won’t go through the numbers, percentages, etc.¹ but two baselines for TV viewing within these metrics appear to be two hours per day and four hours per day. Sweet Jeebus! We might watch four hours of television per week. That is to say that we have about six shows that we try and see every week and have our TiVo dutifully record. We then plow through them, commercial-free, in the brief time between getting Zeke to bed, and succumbing ourselves to the day’s weariness.

So, with three masters degrees between us, K and I seem to give credence to this notion that More Education = Less TV. Or does it? Thompson rightly points out that while this is interesting data, there’s a lot more going on here. He, for instance, came of age² in environs lacking easy television access. His habits thus cemented, he watches very little TV in his adulthood.

I submit to you that the reason K and I watch very little TV these days has little to do with education or formed habits and everything to do with having a two-year old in the house. Morning television is out of the question as we race to shower, dress, eat and get out the door on time. Zeke gets to watch a spot of tele in the evening as K prepares dinner. Then as soon as I get home we eat, play for a while and then head straight upstairs for bath time, jammies and books for Zeke. By the time he’s safely ensconced in dreamland, neither K or I has stopped to breathe for more than about 20 minutes during the day and it’s time to sit, debrief, play online and/or watch television. I assure you that there is not a spare four hours each day for us to watch the tube even if we wanted to.

Which brings me to the story I wanted to tell in the first place. Last week we decided it was time to join the 21st Century and buy a large flat screen television. After spending much of a day off running between stores and comparing prices we brought home a 42″ plasma at a pretty good price. We then set it up realized it was way too big and were underwhelmed by a standard definition picture on a high definition TV.

We dutifully researched the exorbitant prices that Comcast would charge us to upgrade from basic³ to any sort of HD package and realized that this $600 TV was going to cost us far more than that initial cost in the long run. This information in hand, we calculated the value of cable service over the 4-5 hours per week of television and promptly took advantage of Costco’s generous return policy.

Do you, my educated readers, view less television than the unwashed masses that surround you? Is it because you’re wicked-smaaht, or do other factors come into play? Or do you watch far more? Weigh in with your comments, and go visit Hunch for more crowd-sourced conversation starters.

^{1 that’s what the link is there for, silly.
2 went to college
3 veeeeerrry basic.}

My friend Rabbit means well, but everything he does, everywhere he goes…trouble follows.

And this is, almost the entirety of Erich Rohmann’s text for the Caldecott¹ award winning My Friend Rabbit.

What the book lacks in prose it makes up for in visual story. It’s a simple tale of friendship, mayhem and just-missed mauling that will warm the heart of your² animal loving offspring. Listen to your toddler gasp as the intrepid rabbit stacks the great beasts of the world high in an attempt to retrieve a wayward airplane. Cover your eyes like the young ducklings as three or four metric tons of wildlife come crashing down.

Take comfort in Rabbit’s calm demeanor as he says “Not to worry Mouse. I’ve got an idea” just before everything inevitably goes to pot.

But most of all enjoy the illustrations and the Rohmann’s minimalist approach to telling a complex tale of friendship and perserverance.

^{1 I know, real original recommending a book that’s won a freaking Caldecott. So sue me.
2 read: my}

Having access to the bowels of the cataloging department occasionally¹ comes in handy. Especially at such times where a book by an author you enjoy comes in a week before the publication date an the catalogers have affixed all appropriate stickers and metadata. Finding Elizabeth Kostova’s The Swan Thieves was, I thought, just such an occasion.

Turns out that I was wrong. This is a book I kind of stumbled upon – I didn’t really know it was coming out and I hadn’t read any of the prepub reviews. Kostova’s The Historian is a book I similarly stumbled upon and ended up truly enjoying. I figured with that track record The Swan Thieves was a pretty safe bet.

I should have known I was in trouble within the first few chapters when the prose was not up to snuff. Having since returned the book to circulation I don’t have it in front of my to cite² but suffice it to say that cliche was abundant and at several places the writing called to mind treacly fiction aimed primarily at teens. Like The Historian the narrative bounces back-and-forth between present day and the historical record via a collection of old letters. Unlike in Kostova’s first novel, however, the narrative doesn’t seem to move toward convergence. Insead, we see the characters moving in parallel without a compelling resolution in sight.

In a positive review of the book – a review that takes the minority position, it seems – Laura Miller writes,

[Kostova] has placed her faith in the conviction that readers are pleased to sink slowly into a novel, until the world it conjures has closed over their heads, submerging them entirely.

I am indeed willing to sink slowly into a novel, but 200 pages into The Swan Thieves I felt like I was still splashing around in the shallows. This may be blamed on many things including your fair reviewer’s temperament, the author’s subject matter or just poor writing. I don’t really want to throw stones, but this plot and these characters just didn’t do it for me.

By all means read The Historian and if you don’t mind slow-developing action give The Swan Thieves a shot. It just didn’t work for me. Several times, book in hand, I looked to my wife and said the following words – “I really wish I liked this novel.” By the third or fourth time I was finally able to admit that I didn’t.

^{1 Actually, it comes in handy quite often.
2 I wasn’t really planning to review it, but figured I’d offer this public service.}

Does it count as a day of service if the service you are providing is to your own household? Probably not, huh? Anyway, with apologies to Dr. King the wife and I spent much of his holiday yesterday purging our home of detritus, followed by the purchase and subsequent return of a big-ass¹ TV.  But that’s another post altogether. This is just to say that my kid’s book recommendation went un-posted for the day.

So please accept for your young’uns aural pleasure a day late but not exactly a dollar short, One More Sheep by Mij Kelly (author) and Russell Ayto (illustrator).

One More Sheep is a rhyming book that also teaches your spawn to count to ten. Or at least that’s what the media² would have you believe.  In reality it’s an entertaining and well illustrated tale about a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Two things stand out – rhymed verse that actually scans (unlike the perhaps more famous kid’s book that will remain unnamed³) and striking artwork. Oh, and pretty great use of the language – you gotta love any book with the following couplet:

Out on the moor the wind whistles and wuthered / while the sheep safe indoors huddled under the covers.

Kelly and Ayto set the verbal and visual tone from the beginning of the book and follow through with an entertaining tale about the boring nature of sheep:

You’re not all that interesting, you’re not all that odd / you’re a first class ticket to the land of Nod.

The widsom (or lack thereof) of being uncritical in letting in strange sheep:

Stop it right there Sam, you silly man / you’ve got the brains of a watering can!

and the palliative power of counting:

After all that fuss and fluster Sam couldn’t get to sleep / until he settled right down and counted his boring sheep.

And the artwork captures beautifully the barren nature of the wet windy moor alongside the charming domesticity of a man who lives with a bunch of sheep⁴. There is even a bit of self-referential play at work when the artist hangs a work by Mondrian⁵ in Sam’s home – an overt nod to the artist for whom the book’s landscape is an apparent homage.

This one’s another keeper. Teach your kids about counting sheep to go to sleep, not letting wolves into the house and even squeeze in some art appreciation. All in a days work.

^{1 Yes, I believe that’s the technical term
2 as always, I blame the media
3 though not unlinked
4 Ok, ok – no Scottish jokes in the comment section please
5}

Canabalt ushers in the return of the Friday Fun ‘n’ Games to this webspace. You are a low-resolution animated figure who bursts out of his high rise office building to begin a dramatic escape. An escape from what? You pick: overbearing boss, zombies¹, your least favorite co-worker who’s desk the fates have placed not three feet from yours², or perhaps just regular old office boredom.

Point is, you must flee. And doing so is as simple as clicking your mouse to hurdle obstacles, avoid bombs³ and jump – like superman – tall buildings. As simple as it is addictive, the only goal is to run as far and as fast as you can until your attempt at flight inevitably comes up short. Yes, the only victories here are moral victories for there is no real escape. The zombies will win, your co-worker is inching her desk ever closer and the mind-numbing doldrums of your workplace will inevitably crush you. Except for the few moments per day when you seek respite in such leisure escapism as Canabalt⁴. You’ve been warned.

^{1 always popular
2 my favorite
3 so maybe you’re fleeing genocide
4 also available for your mobile gaming pleasure on the iphone}

Within the intersecting area of the Venn diagram consisting of movies I like and movies my wife likes live a very small number of genres largely made up of romantic comedies and, for lack of a better description, heist movies.  In general this works out since neither of us is particularly abashed of watching a DVD alone, or even of the occasional solo trip to the movie theater. It can, however, get a little dull to watch the same few plots play out with only mildly entertaining twists time after time.

Enter 500 Days of Summer:

Now, before we get carried away let’s set the parameters on this one. It’s a romantic comedy. Not necessarily a traditional one, and not one where all loose ends get tied up but a romantic comedy nonetheless.  So what sets it apart from the 25,000 other romantic comedies released each year? It’s smart, well-done and includes a musical dance number¹.

500 Days of Summer hooked me immediately with the image of the happy couple sitting on a park bench, holding hands, with a zoom to a shiny engagement ring. The rub? This was only Day 473². Our immediate reaction to this number is “uh-oh, this movie doesn’t end with them together.  The narrative then proceeds to jump around in its chronology skipping between Good Days and Bad Days as we piece together the love story.  Such antics could be dismissed as a quirky device to make a standard plot a little more interesting. Except for the opening shot, an announcement by a narrator and perhaps even the title of the film letting us in on the secret that “this is not a love story.”

So, we’re left to figure out how it falls apart and what makes the story interesting between days 1 and 500. I won’t give the ending away any more than the director does at the outset of the film. The boy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meets the girl (Zooey Deschanel) while working at an L.A. based greeting card company. He believes in true love³, based largely on a misreading of The Graduate in early adolescence. She believes in living day-to-day and not putting labels on things. Inevitably, the boy falls in love and the girl feels hemmed in. This isn’t new territory by any means.

Ultimately for me this movie succeeds on a visceral level. The movie just seems to get everything right. For much of the story our leads are cardboard cutouts, but they are likable cutouts. The bit players complement the film perfectly, including the karaoke-mad co-worker and the Nietzsche-quoting 12 year-old sister. And every time you want to dismiss the wardrobe as silly hipster posturing, Deschanel or Gordon-Levitt appear on screen dressed not as irreverent youth but as young professionals paying homage the the Hollywood greats that still haunt the streets they walk.

The movie had me interested from the outset, but the point at which I declared, finally, “I like this movie” was during the musical number about halfway through. The film perfectly balances the strum und drang⁴ that plagues single folk with the unselfconscious joy of being in love. We’re in this for a good time and to tell a story. And really, there’s not much else you can ask of a movie⁵. The couple doesn’t end up together, all loose ends are not tied up. But by the end of the film you feel that the boy-meets-girl story had a good run and even though things didn’t quite work out as planned it may just be possible to survive love and life in Tinseltown.

^{1 And you can ask my wife I DO NOT like musicals, but in this movie? I works.
2 or thereabouts, I didn’t take notes so I’m doing this from a week-old memory of viewing the film
3 and the movie makes adequate hay from the irony of this and the way that he trivializes it in his profession
4 or, in the parlance of our times, emo
5 especially in this genre}

In the interests of making this web space a lively, interesting place for you to come (or peruse via RSS) I will shamelessly try on this gimmick for size. As the wife and I have a two-year old in residence – and are deeply committed to the written word – we read a lot of kids’ books. As I know that several of my half dozen or so readers are also parents I shall hope to offer a useful recommendation each Monday¹ for all you folk out there in the parenting/reading trenches.

Our inaugural choice for this weekly bit is the delightfully conceived and illustrated² Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem.  Our story opens with an approach to taming the eternal insouciance of youth that speaks to a parent’s desperation.  To wit:

Our hero, of course, is unconcerned as it would certainly be impossible for his parents to arrange delivery of “the largest animal in the world, ever” to his humble abode. As as you may guess, his parents pull off just such a feat³.  Hilarity ensues, including the requisite schoolyard ostracism and some clever use of physical humor that depend largely on matters of scale – trying to fit the whale in the classroom, playing in the park with his pet whale, trying to gather 10,000 gallons of seawater at feeding time, etc. And it’s all fun and games until somebody gets stuck in the blowhole.

I won’t spoil the ending but it is cute, and relies on the physical juxtaposition of the world’s largest mammal with the everyday details of modern suburban life.

Ultimately, this is probably a little old for a two-year old, but Zeke seems to enjoy it. As a parent it’s nice to find a book with a good sense of humor that throws some things in for adults. Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem is one of those great books that entertains both child and adult.  Zeke likes the pictures of the whale, and I like the quirky story line and the subtle touches such as having another child on the playground swinging with a giant squid as if just anyone might happen to have ocean-dwelling pets as a commonplace of life.

In short, this one is worth the purchase⁴ and will most likely grow with your child from early toddler right on through intermediate reader.

^{1 until I inevitably tire of the task, or (less likely) run out of good material to promote
2 as illustration is essential to judging quality I am including [gasp!] copyrighted images in this post. They are downsampled, cropped and not intended to replace the actual product. Thus ends my disclaimer
3 ah, if only this weapon was in our real-life arsenal of parenting techniques
4 but by all means please take it for a spin at your local library first}

What, you actually wanted me to write something after my grand declaration of return? Ok, ok, I get it. Here you go:

There’s a nice little post over at Gizmodo about the sudden spike in the number of e-book readers hitting the market. Their verdict: There are too many e-book readers¹. And their reasoning falls pretty well in line with my feelings on the matter². So, by all means, please head on over and read it.

Too lazy to click on over? Thought so. The gist is that these are intermediate devices and will miss a large group of “middle-road” readers. If you like Barnes ‘n’ Noble or Amazon, and buy a lot of books the Nook/Kindle will be quite satisfactory. If you pirate a lot of books on bit torrent then there are some sub $100 models coming your way with lots of compatibility and no access to authorized retail channels. This leaves a sizable group people in the middle who might be looking for competitive pricing but don’t understand all the options.  Our Gizmodo blogger contends that “these people might give up on buying books altogether.”

Now, as a Librarian I am one such person who has, for the most part, given up buying books. And I am generally here to help others do the same sort of thing. And thus, my reaction so far to e-book readers has amounted to little more than a shrug.  I’m not one of those who argue that the printed, corporeal word will be with us into eternity. Though it might be – the death of paper has long been foretold and, has yet to materialize. Or, as this paper [PDF] from Harvard’s Shorenstein Center puts it:

Paper is all around us, quietly doing the same work it’s been doing
for centuries. Indeed, what’s most remarkable about the quest for e-paper is the standard by which we measure its progress. Paper itself is the inescapable metaphor, the paradigm, the tantalizing goal. The new medium will be deemed a success if and when it is no longer just an imitation of paper, but the real thing – when it becomes paper. It’s not as easy as it looks

So, touche. But I, as well as the author himself, grant that modes of reading may well evolve beyond the bound and printed word as we know it.  And this is my point – as a culture we are increasingly becoming format agnostic and will consume media in whatever way presents itself as most convenient.

My interest in e-readers, then,  is piqued only by the simple question of convenience. Loaning a physical book is easy. Its contents are discreet, packaged nicely and fit in a relatively small space. It is convenient to the original reader and on down the line to subsequent readers throughout the ages (or as long as the paper, glue and ink last) to read, re-read, loan and otherwise dispose of as they please. E-book readers have a long way to come in that sense. If I purchase an electronic copy of Thomas Pynchon’s V³ on my Kindle, Nook, etc. I can certainly read and re-read but if I want to evangelize, then I am stuck handing over my reader⁴, and potentially my entire library contained therein, until my unwitting mark reads the novel and returns it. And anyone who has ever loaned a book knows not to expect it back within any reasonable amount of time. Not to mention that if I was looking to pick up a used paperback copy for a couple of bucks, there’s no such analogue in the digital world⁵.

Ultimately, I come neither to praise or bury the e-book reader. I only point out that the technology has not come far enough for me to find it useful. I agree with the good people at Gizmodo that the devices currently available are but nascent incarnations of what we can expect within a few years, and I don’t know that even those will allow us to consume that particular media – books- in the manner in which we are accustomed and bring us satisfaction⁶. And until the Gordian knot of DRM is cut and balance is achieved between access and ownership in the digital realm I will continue to shrug my shoulders, scan the next patron’s library card and inform them that their stack of books is due in two weeks.

^{1 Or, their official title “There are officially to damn many ebook readers
2 as a Librarian I’m pretty much expected to have “feelings on the matter”
3 A worthy purchase, I assure you.
4 Yes, B&N’s Nook allows one time loaning to other Nook owners and it’s a step in the right direction
5 unless you expect me to purloin it via bit torrent
6 though I am, in fact, rooting for it}

It is de rigueur among the blog-inclined to offer a sincere apology to the internets after a hiatus. It is just as customary to swear upon the reflection of Narcissus that the wheels of the vanity press, now restarted, will spin ever faster in atonement for weeks (or months) gone by in silence. I offer no such epistulary supplication.

In brief, I am returned. For the moment. And for as long as it pleases me. Hopefully we’ll have a pretty good run.

Yes, yes we’ve continued the sporadic postings around these parts. What can I say? But at least today you’re in luck with a pleasant game for your Friday afternoon. Part maze, part race The Line Game tasks you with guiding a snake-like orange line through maze-like orange levels frought with obstacles. Huh!? Don’t worry, you’ll get it.

The makers of this game – like most games nowadays – offer some simple tutorial levels to ease you in. After those are over you are warned that “The levels are hard. I make no apology for this.” Fair enough. Good fun nonetheless, so head on over and get playing.

The good folks over at Slate are doing an interesting crowdsource photography project:

We want to know what the recession looks like to our readers—and we want to tap into your creativity and resourcefulness to capture this perilous moment.

They’ve created a flick group for folks to post their own shots it seems like an interesting project. I have submitted my favorite below – clicking through will take you to the photo page and you can get to the group from there. You can also jump directly to Slate’s Shoot the Recession on Flickr.

The hamsters that power our servers are apparently underfed, overworked and generally disgruntled this afternoon. So while I have acces to the site here’s a quick fun ‘n’ games with little comment. Place the blocks to bounce the laser from Points A to B. Sometimes you need to pick up “keys” to open up Point B. Avoid all hazards, obstacles, etc. Happy bouncing and happy weekend!

Bounce

After seeing William P. Young’s The Shack flying off our library shelves as fast as people could return it, and after hearing from at least one person who’s opinion I respect that liked it I took the plunge. Bad move on my part. Not only is the writing suspect, the theology is fairly shallow and the characterization of God as the Trinity borderline offensive.

But let’s start at the beginning. In The Shack the main character, Mack, loses his youngest daughter to a serial murderer on a camping trip. He later receives an invitation – apparently from God – to return to the shack where his daughter’s bloody dress was found. God then proceeds to put the hard sell on Mack to get over his anger and realize that God is bigger than personal tragedy.

What Mack is struggling with is what the theologians refer to as theodicy. Theodicy, as a friend recently put it can be viewed as “the only theological question that really matters because it’s the only one that doesn’t have a very good answer.” Theodicy asks how a God who is all powerful, and all benevolent can allow suffering to happen in the world. Or, “why do bad things happen to good people?”.

Unfortunately, after finishing with The Shack¹ I am not entirely sure that it’s possible for a novel to tackle the question of theodicy overtly. This is to say I am happy when fiction deals with tragedy, reconciliation and such weighty moral questions of human existence. I am not so happy when the narrative format turns pedantic, and even less so when it takes aim in it’s pedantry at one of history’s most prominent theological questions.

As this is a blog post and not a final essay for a graduate seminar, I will follow the format used in my previous post on Their Eyes Were Watching God. Bullet pointed musings on what I liked and disliked coming right up!

• Early in the novel there is a useful illustration of a bird that was designed to fly but was able to limit itself to walking. This is how we are to understand the idea of God becoming fully human to enter into relation with his creation. OK – I’ll bite.

• The idea of the Trinity embodying the principle of living in relationship is another point well made. The father, son and holy spirit form a circle of relationship without hierarchy. The ability of humans to enter into this same type of relationship not only with each other but also with God is reasonably compelling theology

• It’s pretty much bad from there…

• I’m willing to suspend disbelief about God sending one man an invitation to meet one-on-one to overcome personal tragedy. Sort of. I’m less willing to let pass God as “a large beaming African American woman”. Methinks we smell a wee bit of white guilt here. Not to mention that Young’s characterization of this beaming African American woman is a base stereotype of the head-scarf wearing Mammy figure full of sass, homespun wisdom and just the right amount of dropped consonants in her dialect.

• Jesus and the Holy Spirit aren’t much better.

• During Mack’s visit to the shack, he has his recurring nightmare about his daughter’s abduction and killing. He wakes up and pitifully asks why God won’t make the dream go away. This is beyond simpering.

• For all the talk about relational living, this sure seems like an individualistic quest for satisfaction from the Almighty. There is little talk about what role a community of fellow believers plays in the common life.²

• There’s actually a chapter titled “Here Come Da Judge” in this book.

• And here’s where the novel lost me for good: Eventually Mack gets to see his daughter. He is also reassured that his daughter knows he’s there and that this experience is real. Letting go the notion that we will still be who we were on earth when we get to heaven this is still hugely problematic. It answers the question of tragedy by glibly pointing to the afterlife. Oh everything works out for the best because no matter how painful your loss you get a do-over in heaven. What does it say for faith that Mack has to see his daughter alive in order to let go of his loss, forgive God and move on?

• I really tried to keep reading but couldn’t do it. The characterization felt artificial, God kept telling Mack that he (Mack) couldn’t understand him (God) but the author treats the Trinity as thorougly knowable in each incarnation throughout the book. Plus the Heaven answer to theodicy is just ridiculous. Not that it’s the only answer the author posits, but Mack seeing his daughter is the definite turning point of the novel – the next page reveals that The Great Sadness that had ruled his life was now gone. Sheesh.

So, in conclusion, save yourself some time and don’t read The Shack. No, really, don’t read it. Take a swipe at a good translation of Job, C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain or even Harold Kushner’s Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. Theodicy is a question that writers, thinkers and artists have struggled with for ages. Just because The Shack is a new, trendy, popular take on an old question doesn’t make the question new, and it doesn’t make the treatment measured. You’ve been warned.

^{1 N.B. I “finished” with The Shack after about 180 pages – leaving about 40-50 pages unread
2 props to Rainey, the preacher lady, for the catch on that one}

We’re keeping the streak alive this week with another puzzle game – our favorite type! Enter Block Drop a game where all you have to do is jump on each block once to sink it, and end up on the checkered block to ferry you across the River Styx to the next level. Jump one block in any direction using the arrow keys, two blocks using the shift+arrow keys. That’s all there is to it. Happy jumping, and happy weekend!

Here at ye ol’e Public Liberry we try and put on programs that enlighten, entertain and generally raise the level of discourse among the unwashed masses. As such, we participated this year in the NEA’s Big Read Program. Being clever little librarians, we picked Zora Neale Hurston’s Thier Eyes Were Watching God and scored a twofer with Black History Month.

Since I am the Adult Services Librarian¹ around here, I was tasked² with leading the book discussion. Having not read the book since college, and having no intention of re-reading this fine novel, I felt pretty confident in my ability to carry out this task. To wit – a conversation between me and the Bossman:

Bossman: “Hey, this audio introduction from the NEA is pretty good. If you listened to that you probably wouldn’t have to re-read the book before you lead the discussion.”

Yours Truly: “I was an English major – I don’t need to have read the book in the first place to lead the discussion!”

Nonetheless I diligently prepared myself so as not to seem uneducated. I read biographical sketches, author interviews and criticism. I listened to the aforementioned audio introduction³. I even re-read sections from the book. The result? Three white ladies from our regular adult book club⁴ came for the discussion. We talked just as much about foreign exchange students reading Shakespeare as we did about the novel in question. On balance I’d say we really brought the community together on that one. And celebrated the heck out of Black History Month to boot!

So – having gone to all that trouble preparing, I share with you some impressionistic musings on Their Eyes Were Watching God. If you’re looking for something to read, go to your local liberry, check it out and celebrate Black History Month while Reading Across America!

• On balance I liked such Harlem Renaissance novels as Cane and to a lesser extent Invisible Man better than this one. Maybe because I’m male and this was largely a woman’s coming of age story.

• There’s no denying that the novel is well written, and Hurston’s background in anthropology shines through in her treatment of the work’s dialogue⁵.

• It sometimes feels like think Hurston over romanticizes the plight of the black working poor, but it’s hard to criticize an author who died anonymously and almost had her entire remaining possessions lost in a bonfire behind her house. Certainly she’d know better than I do about the plight of the black working poor…

• Reading Hurston really reminds me of what I’ve read by Toni Morrison. Earlier stuff like Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye and Beloved. Would be interested to do a comparison of those two authors to trace Hurston’s influence on Morrison.

• The passage that gives the novel it’s title evokes the end of Job for me. Appropriate in some ways, but somewhat incongrous in a work that doesn’t seem overly concerned with religion.
  

  The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time.  They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God. (p. 236, U of Illinois Press ed., 1978)

  And the Lord said to Job:
  ²‘Shall a fault-finder contend with the Almighty?
  Anyone who argues with God must respond.’
  

  ³Then Job answered the Lord:
  ⁴‘See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you?
  I lay my hand on my mouth.
  ⁵I have spoken once, and I will not answer;
  twice, but will proceed no further.’
  

  6 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
  ⁷‘Gird up your loins like a man;
  I will question you, and you declare to me.
  ⁸Will you even put me in the wrong?
  Will you condemn me that you may be justified?
  ⁹Have you an arm like God,
  and can you thunder with a voice like his?
  (Job 40:2-9; NRSV)

That’s probably enough for the moment. Feel free to continue the discussion in the comments. Yes, even if you’re a white lady who occasionally participates in a local book club.

^{1 Whatever that means…
2 Read: Stuck with
3 Very good – as advertised
4 Yup – we couldn’t even get the whole book club to attend
5 One of the ladies who came to the discussion didn’t even read the book – “Ah’ve nevah been able to read negro dialect. Haven’t been able to since childhood…” Nice.}

The Friday Fun ‘n’ Games is Back! And we’re celebrating our re-launch with a new version of an old favorite. Your mission in Totem Destroyer 2 is to destroy the required number of blocks without letting the Golden Idol hit the ground. What’s new in version 2 is that blocks interact in new and different ways. If you haven’t played the first one, head on over to Totem Destroyer 1 for a few minutes, and continue the game playing goodness with the sequel. Happy gaming – it’s good to be back!