Meltintalle's Closet

Is there some sort of unspoken rule about N. D. Wilson's The Dragon's Tooth? "The first rule of the Ashtown Burials is that we do not talk about Treasure Island in conjunction with this story..."

(I want someone to do a thoughtful essay about the parallels and rewriting and recasting and why it's good to retell an old story and what it says about both stories.)

It can be interesting to hear what other people have to say about a book, so I made a note of the Redeemed Reader podcast discussion and finally listened to it today. The first thing on their list was possible influences and the panel brought up Dickens and Tolkien. Nothing against Mr. Dickens, but... really? I... don't see it.

However, when they got to the discussion about villains, I was intrigued by the comment that an author's villains say a lot about what he thinks about the nature of evil. In both series of books, N. D. Wilson's villains are fighting and subverting death itself and the heroes only live when they embrace the possibility of dying.

(Even a face off between Long John Silver and Ben Sterling would be interesting because they do some of the same things but they're not the same in the end...)

OUaT: 02x01: Broken
Oct 12, 2012, 11:23

I watched it. I have opinions...

( No good deed goes unpunished )

OUaT: 02x02: We are Both
Oct 19, 2012, 15:04

( You can always get them back )

OUaT 02x09 Queen of Hearts
Dec 3, 2012, 10:10

I had an opportunity to watch the winter finale (I think that's what they call it?) even though I haven't seen the intervening episodes... I think that's like skipping to the end of the story. Oops. ;)) Nevertheless, I oriented myself quickly.

( All evil really needs is a hug )

OUaT 02x12 In the Name of the Brother
Jan 21, 2013, 11:14

( Selfish Love )

( 'That is the sorcery of books,' said Puck. 'I warned thee they were wise children. All people can be wise by reading of books' )

Anyone else read something you have opinions on lately?

A round-up of some of the things I've read in the past three months...

Dog of the High Seirras by Albert Payson Terhune: My sister and I played "I'll tell you the cast of characters, you tell me who the villain is" before I read it.

The choices are
a) the Chinese cook
b) the Indian
c) the girl
d) the eccentric old man
e) the girl's father

I suppose the hero could have been a choice as well, but we didn't think of that.

( What's your answer? )

Recently, I read The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright, an utterly charming book about four siblings who pool their allowances to allow each of them a Saturday adventure. As a modern reader, I doubt the feasibility of their activities -- but they did things I've done or always wanted to do... and that made it even better, somehow. I actually started reading about the Melendys with The Four Story Mistake, which reminded me a lot of Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes (--I think. One of her books anyway.) I'm going to have to look up the other two soon. I'm just a little surprised that it's taken me this long to find Enright... she reminds me so much of the books and authors I've loved before: Noel Streatfield, Kate Seredy, Mabel Leigh Hunt (specifically Ladycake Farm which is comfort reading at its absolute best) and the Boxcar Children.

I also read The Blue Thread by Ruth Tenzer Feldman, which has the intriguing premise of a young Oregon woman in 1912, the women's suffrage movement, and Biblical time-travel. It's nicely written and plotted, as far as I can tell it's well-researched, but as a Christian I kind of think it lacking in that area. I don't expect it to be in-your-face, but I thought there was a general lack of... awe? After all, the heroine met Moses when the Israelites were on the brink of the Promised Land. That scene was good. I just expected it to have a little more affect on her life back home.

On the non-fiction front, I'm currently working through The Company They Keep by Diana Pavlac Glyer. This is a nice thick book about the Inklings and their influence on each other. It's very good, full of quotes and interesting thoughts on writing. I would highly recommend it. The author has a very readable style and the footnotes are all interesting side excursions.

I also had the opportunity to view the 1935 movie version of Les Miserables. It more or less followed the book... you could at least rationalize stuff that ended up being cut or changed... but the ending didn't quite work. Valjean had had his chance to say goodbye to his family, and then Javert let him go and there was nothing left to resolve. The End. Uh... except for the whole speech that may or may not have happened after Javert's death: "Sorry, Cosette, I guess I was wrong about needing to go to prison England but that's okay! You marry Marius and I'll... do something."

I quite liked the casting of Javert. For some reason, I have a mental image of Javert cast as a tall, saturnine fellow, (okay, the very first incarnation of Javert I ever saw was tall and quite handsome, and Terrence Mann hasn't helped there either...) and Charles Laughton was short, slightly chubby, and you felt that duty and following the letter of the law really was everything he had. I also have absolutely no quibbles with the casting of Fredric March as the extremely good looking Jean Valjean/Monsieur Madeline. *swoon* The bishop was a splendid sort of fellow too, and while the acting might have seemed a little stagey and stilted, I am not complaining. That the moment where I shipped Valjean and Eponine? I'm sure it was unintentional on the filmmakers part... but on the other hand, I can't quite unsee it. It'd be a Colonel Brandon/Marianne sort of pairing, agewise, and that's by saying that Valjean was only fifteen or so when he was shipped off to the galleys. And if they'd let her live, that could have cleared up the awkwardness at the end. Yeah. I'll keep telling myself that.

I'd been planning to do a end of year reading summary post thing, so, without further ado...

(  'Sorry,' he said penitently. 'It's a book. I have no common sense around them.'—The Bell at Sealey Head by Patricia McKillip  )

My siblings and I invented a new dessert today. We're big fans of icing, but not so much of cake. Anyway, we had a packet of icing to use, and this was the result.




Ingredients:

• flaky biscuit fresh from the oven
• vanilla icing
• fruit

Assemble and enjoy!

We decided that since the combination of fruit and bread was rather like shortcake, this must be tallcake.