the Cybrary Reviews

Retirement playlist

2011-01-06T17:36:00.004-06:00

Music to leave work by -- retirement songs on my iPod:

I Shall Be Released - Wolverine Willy & the Blues Toads
A Change is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke
Changes - David Bowie
Truckin' - Grateful Dead
Ripple - Grateful Dead
I'll Fly Away - Alison Krauss & Gillian Welch
Everybody's Talking - Harry Nilsson
When I'm Sixty-Four - the Beatles
Secret O' Life - James Taylor
Who Knows Where the Time Goes - Sandy Denny
On the Road Again - Willy Nelson
Unfinished Life - Kate Wolf
Walk - Burning Spear
If I Had Wings - Peter Paul & Mary
I'm Ready - Muddy Waters
It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine) - R.E.M.
Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
I'm So Glad - Cream
The Honor of Your Company - Barbara Hoffman
Der Abschied - Gustav Mahler

Avatar: biggest. movie. ever?

2010-01-05T12:33:00.005-06:00

I don't go to the theaters to see many films twice, but Avatar is an exception in many ways. Although its primary impact is as a visual spectacle and technical achievement, and it may be more heavy-handed than sophisticated, it's still pretty effective in making its points. This is what SF (of the H. G. Wells school) is supposed to do.

My friend Steve Hirby notes that it's a shame Cameron couldn't have come up with a better ending than redemptive violence. I agree. But as the the excellent AV Club Blog review noted: "Cameron has never been a blindingly original storyteller, and Avatar is no exception to the rule." I think his most original feature, which was decidedly nonviolent, was "The Abyss", which I loved even if the ending lacked drama.

Avatar's redemptive violence is (alas) pure standard Hollywood, but I did enjoy the irony of the giant alien female defeating the human in the armored walker as a neat reversal of Sigourney Weaver's victory at the end of his "Aliens." The stefnal value of the redemptive violence is that it was largely ineffective until the planet itself took sides, in away that the Earth had not. It was noted of the humans that “there is no green” on their “dying world” because “they have killed their mother.”

This is sort of where the sociology of the movie broke down for me. Having “killed” the earth, human have clearly learned nothing and our best chance on a new world has only a few scientists who have no sway over short-sighted corporate profit-seeking. Seems like the plausible SF has yielded to the very heavy-handed metaphor, which leaves us again at Cameron's weaknesses as a story-teller.

Avatar may be on-track to become the biggest-grossing film of all time, and deservedly so. Flaws it has, but it's still a terrific & worthwhile film.

Favorite films of 2009

2009-12-31T17:15:00.003-06:00

Don't know that they're the best, but they were my favorites...

Up in the Air
Star Trek
Up
Inglourious Basterds
District 9
The Hangover
Ponyo
Where the Wild Things Are
Avatar

Still looking forward to seeing possible contenders for inclusion: The Messenger, Precious, The Hurt Locker, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moon, Broken Embraces, 500 Days of Summer

Favorite films of the decade

2009-12-12T08:12:00.004-06:00

This is a personal favorites list, neither a ranked "top ten" and surely not a "best" list -- there are too many great films I've yet to see. But there are movies I've liked a lot...

In the Mood for Love - Wong Kar-Wai's romantic meditation on love, loyalty, and finding small safe havens. Strongly influential on the better-known Lost in Translation
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - intelligent, challenging science fictional look at memory, love and loss. Jim Carrey's apogee, surrealistic, funny and heartbreaking.
The Lord of the Rings - Peter Jackson's trilogy redefined epic and shattered the limits of what could be put onto the screen. Hugely entertaining and successful realization of its source.
Inglourious Basterds - WW II fantasy combines suspense and violence with occasional splashes of outrageous humor. Ultimately a movie about movies, Quentin Tarantino firing on all cylinders
Gosford Park - mystery set against Robert Altman's complex tapestry of lives upstairs and downstairs in an English country home
Spirited Away - alienated girl trapped in a magical world learns responsibility and values
No Country for Old Men -clinically cold, powerful story of a remorseless killer -- good, evil, consequences, chance and implacable fate; the Coens in their nasty mode
Pan's Labyrinth - magic and myth are empowering and terrifying; Franco's fascists are just terrifying in Guillermo Del Toro's fantasy
Children of Men - bleak, inspiring science fiction, adapted from P.D. James' novel by Alfonso Cuaron
Talk to Her - story of love and loneliness, perhaps Almodovar's best
Y Tu Mama Tambien - powerful coming of age Mexican road trip story

Inglourious Basterds

2009-08-30T21:14:00.004-06:00

Tarantino's new film is breathtakingly good. Ultimately, it's a movie about movies as wish-fulfillment and fantasy, but along the way, what looked like an action-adventure story turns out to be mostly suspense.

Basterds is not an easy movie, overly bloody with violence in some sections, seemingly overly talky in others. But Tarantino's clever pacing often defies expectations in a film that is not exactly what it seems. The movie shifts gears, drops occasional pieces of throwaway humor, and offers surprises: supposedly the story of a group of Jewish American soldiers wreaking vengenance in occupied France, it is more a long shaggy dog story setting up a climax defying viewer expectations and genre conventions.

The central conceit of the story is telling. In a movie theater in occupied Paris, characters watch a German war movie. So we find ourselves watching a war movie about people watching a war movie, based on an actual -- within the reality of the film -- historic event. Characters discuss the event, how they felt about it and how they feel about the film version.

Along the way, there are numerous nods to other films, including Chaplin's The Kid, The Time Machine, Battleship Potemkin, and The Last Metro. There is a truly quirky cameo by Mike Myers, some very nice work by many actors in supporting roles large and small and a oddly-mannered but strong performance by Brad Pitt as the apparently bloodthirsty Apache hillbilly who leads the Jewish soldiers. But the best work is by young French actress Mélanie Laurent, who plays a Jewish girl hiding in plain sight, and a great performance by Christoph Waltz as a truly diabolical Nazi detective.

There are no great philosophical revelations: Nazism was evil, and in war, even good people have to do terrible things. But Tarantino tells us a fascinating story, with suspense and heart, about how we feel about the stories we tell ourselves.

District 9: another country heard from

2009-08-15T09:42:00.004-06:00

This is a unique film: a South African science fiction mockumentary, resembling a gritty B-movie, but with excellent special effects, using Hitchcockian tropes to grab the viewer and confound expectations. And that's just the form.

The content is a reflection not only on South Africa's heritage of apartheid, but on current problems dealing with immigration issues. The story revolves around an employee of a multi-national corporation, contracted by the South African government to relocate a settlement of cryptic, unattactive aliens from a camp near Johannesburg, and take them somewhere out of sight and mind.

As the protagonist of the film takes a hero's journey, beginning as an unwitting bureaucratic tool, so the story and the film grow right before the viewer. Part action-adventure and part humanistic plea for tolerance, District 9 confronts a lot of issues in the new world order.

Like much quality science fiction, the movie holds up a distorted magic mirror. It's uncomfortable to see ourselves there, but hard to turn away, and ultimately worthwhile. Highly recommended.

Jane Eyre

2009-08-10T10:31:00.004-06:00

I'm attempting to rectify some longstanding gaps in my literary education. This year's reading list includes Crime and Punishment, Tale of Two Cities, and Three Men in a Boat. And I've just finished Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

As a modern librarian, I "read" Jane Eyre in multimedia fashion. Most of it I either read in the free Kindle app on my iPod or listened to via a recording from Librivox, which produces free downloadable audiobooks of public domain literature. When I actually had time to sit in my living room, I read a hardcover copy from the library. Although I found the Victorian prose slow going at first, I warmed to the story and the character of Jane, particularly as voiced in Elizabeth Klett's wonderful reading for Librivox. Klett's Librivox works have a lot of fans.

I was ready for the prototypical gothic romance, the brooding Rochester, the star-crossed love. I wasn't expecting the proto-feminism, accompanied by deft attacks on religious hypocrisy and rigid ideas of predestination. Jane is a fascinating character with a terrific story, told by a skilled and insightful writer.

Having finished the book, I had to check out the screen treatments, and there are quite a few -- IMDB lists 21 different versions, including feature films and mini-series. So far, I've watched the 1944 Joan Fontaine & Orson Welles version, which was interesting, but at 97 minutes glossed over or elided some significant aspects of the plot and was not altogether satisfactory. Better was the 1983 BBC mini-series with Zelah Clarke and Timothy Dalton, which included sufficient detail and was well played by the leads.

I'm looking forward to seeing some other adaptations, and reading more by Charlotte Bronte. I'll probably re-read Jasper Fforde's wonderful Eyre Affair, the first Thursday Next novel, now that I'll understand more of the allusions.

Wisconsin Children's Book Awards

2009-06-26T15:03:00.002-06:00

Leah Langby, chair, Children’s Book Award Committee, writes:

Elizabeth Burr/Worzalla Award goes to Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book
The Children’s Book Award Committee of the Youth Services Section of the Wisconsin Library Association announces that this year’s winner of the Elizabeth Burr/Worzalla Award is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, published by HarperCollins.

The committee also selected the following Outstanding Books:
Old Bear by Kevin Henkes, published by Greenwillow
Bird Lake Moon by Kevin Henkes, published by Greenwillow
It's Not Fair! Illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld (written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal), published by HarperCollins
The Adventures of Sir Lancelot the Great by Gerald Morris, illustrated by Aaron Renier, published by Houghton Mifflin
Monsoon Afternoon by Kashmira Sheth, published by Peachtree
The Elizabeth Burr/Worzalla Award winner receives a $1,000 award, funded by the WLA Foundation through a generous contribution from Worzalla Publishing of Stevens Point. The winner is also invited to attend the Awards banquet at the WLA Annual Conference.

The committee reported that it looked at about 80 titles this year. Committee members are Kate Fitzgerald-Fleck (Waukesha Public Library), Pat Freitag (Graham Public Library, Union Grove), Barb Huntington (DLTCL, Madison), Tom Hurlburt (Rhinelander District Library), Linda Jerome (La Crosse Public Library), Leah Langby (Indianhead Federated Library System, Eau Claire), Susan Pesheck (River Falls Public Library).

Go, Neil!

Wisconsin Literary Awards

2009-06-23T10:14:00.002-06:00

Wisconsin Library Association Literary Awards Committee Chair Ellen Jepson has posted the following to state email lists:

The Literary Awards Committee of the Readers’ Section of the Wisconsin Library Association has chosen What It Is by Lynda Barry as the winner of the RR Donnelley Literary Award, given for the highest literary achievement by a Wisconsin author in 2009. What It Is appears at first to be an eccentric writer’s guide. In reality it is a densely-layered treatise on setting aside inhibition, following your dreams, and allowing your inner child to come out and play again. Lynda offers us insight into how she overcame self-doubt, as well as the doubts of others, to follow her muse, and in the process become one of America’s leading cartoonists. Part memoir, part writer’s guide, Lynda does a brilliant job of using her own experiences to illustrate that each of us has the power to create within us.

The RR Donnelley Literary Award is made possible by RR Donnelley Company of Chicago, IL through a grant to the WLA Foundation.

Two authors were chosen for their body of work as Notable Wisconsin Authors. Gene DeWeese is the author of multiple fiction titles for adults and children, including The Doll with Opal Eyes and Jeremy Case. Margaret Ashmun wrote fiction, non-fiction, and children’s books and her works include The Lake and the Isabel Carleton series.

2009 Outstanding Achievement awards for 2008 publications include the following ten titles by Wisconsin authors. They are:
Anthony Bukoski - North of the Port: Stories
Lauren Groff - Monsters of Templeton
Sharon Kaye - The Aristotle Quest: Black Market Truth
David Maraniss - Rome 1960: the Olympics that Changed the World
David McGlynn - The End of the Straight and Narrow: Stories
Rachel Pastan - Lady of the Snakes
David Rhodes - Driftless
Michael Schumacher - Wreck of the Carl D.: a True Story of Loss, Survival, and Rescue at Sea
Lori Tharps - Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love, and Spain
Jean Wilkowski - Abroad for her Country: Tales of a Pioneer Woman Ambassador in the U.S. Foreign Service
2009 Outstanding Achievement in Poetry awards for 2008 titles include the following four titles:
Matthew Guenette - Sudden Anthem
Judy Roy and June Nirschl - Two Off Q: a Conversation in Poetry
Austin Smith - In the Silence of the Migrated Birds
Ron Wallace - For a Limited Time Only
The 2009 Literary Awards Committee members are: Ellen Jepson (chair), Jean Anderson, Susan Belsky, Anne Callaghan, Caroline Haskin, Brian Kopetsky, Amy Lutzke, Rhonda Puntney, Deb Shapiro, and Cece Wiltzius.

For more information about the work of the Literary Awards Committee, go to
http://www.wla.lib.wi.us/readers/WLAC/lac.html

Best films of 2008

2008-12-31T17:33:00.004-06:00

Although I'm still waiting to see Milk, Let the Right One In, Synecdoche, The Wrestler, The Reader, Revolutionary Road, Gran Torino, Changeling and Frost/Nixon, I've seen a lot of very good films this year. Up to now, here are the best:

The Curious Tale of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Slumdog Millionaire
Iron Man
Wall-E
The Visitor
The Dark Knight
In Bruges

and in a close second:

Vicky Kirstina Barcelona
Burn after Reading
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Who says 2008 wasn't a good year for films?

Best FSF Films

2008-12-21T23:40:00.009-06:00

It's the time of year for making lists. 2008 proved a mixed bag for SF films, ending with a disappointing remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. But the year also brought us the very strong Benjamin Button, the surprisingly good Iron Man, the luminous WALL-E and the DVD of Satoshi Kon's mind-bending Paprika. So in the spirit of year-end lists, and in no particular order, here's my all time top science fiction films:

Lost Horizon (1937)
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
The Empire Strikes Back
Blade Runner
Young Frankenstein
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
WALL•E
Forbidden Planet
Metropolis
A Clockwork Orange
Aliens
The Thing from Another World (1951)
2001: A Space Odyssey
Children of Men
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
The Road Warrior
The Terminator
Twelve Monkeys
The Invisible Man
Dark City
Paprika
Ghost in the Shell
The Fifth Element
The Matrix
Jurassic Park
Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan

and best fantasy films:

Wizard of Oz
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Princess Bride
Ugetsu
Princess Mononoke
Groundhog Day
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Spirited Away
Howl's Moving Castle
Kiki's Delivery Service
My Neighbor Totoro
Fantasia
Pan's Labyrinth
The Curious Tale of Benjamin Button
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Harvey
Field of Dreams
Labyrinth
The Wolf Man

1776 by David McCullough

2008-11-30T15:05:00.004-06:00

This is a military history of the first full year of the American Revolution, the year the nation was born. Most Americans remember July 4, 1776 for the Declaration of Independence, and they may know that Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas. But 1776 was an eventful year. Quoting a wide variety of firsthand accounts and letters, McCullough brings a long, costly and difficult year of military campaigns to life. From the words of sources on both sides of the struggle, the Americans and British are humanized.

As much as anything, this is the story of George Washington's on-the-job training as commander of the Continental Army. In covering the three major campaigns of 1776, in Boston, New York and New Jersey, McCullough tells stories of courage, luck, blunders and betrayals. But in the details of battles and the struggles of soldiers, a nation emerged and a national character began to form. Unlikely heroic leaders emerged, like Nathaniel Green and Henry Knox. Their stories are ours; McCullough melds them into a fascinating and important story.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

2008-11-29T12:16:00.003-06:00

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a film with ambitions, though either the ambitions or their execution are a shade too modest for excellence. Still, this is an enjoyable science fiction teen romance, which almost aspires to be an art film. It's a beautiful film to watch.

The story is a sequel to a novel well known in Japan, and recently released as a manga, The Girl Who Runs Through Time. The original, by author Yasutaka Tsutsui, has been frequently adapted as feature films and TV series. The anime, from director Mamoru Hosoda and art director Nizo Yamamoto, plays out like Run Lola Run meets Whisper of the Heart. Studio Ghibli veteran Yamamoto also did backgrounds for Whisper of the Heart and it shows. Once again, Tokyo streets and parks are infused with so much reality they seem like an additional character in the movie.

Author Tsutsui also wrote the original for the film Paprika, so he shows a pattern of playing with perception, reality and time. There's a lot to like in Girl Who Leapt as the story and character develop. But the resolution could have been more tightly woven -- it feels like the film has one ending too many or one too few, throwing away some of its potential.

Poetry Friday: Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T15:52:00.002-06:00

Thanksgiving (from Via Dolorosa)

Could love give strength to thank thee! Love can give
Strong sorrow heart to suffer: what we bear
We would not put away, albeit this were
A burden love might cast aside and live.
Love chooses rather pain than palliative,
Sharp thought than soft oblivion. May we dare
So trample down our passion and our prayer
That fain would cling round feet now fugitive
And stay them—so remember, so forget,
What joy we had who had his presence yet,
What griefs were his while joy in him was ours
And grief made weary music of his breath,
As even to hail his best and last of hours
With love grown strong enough to thank thee, Death?

- Algernon Charles Swinburne

Poetry Friday: Hope

2008-11-07T07:59:00.002-06:00

Hope is the Thing with Feathers
by Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Poetry Friday

2008-10-24T15:22:00.002-06:00

It's been a long week of administrivia, budgets and politics. Some poetical perspecitve, thanks to E. E. Cummings.

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
-- electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
A world of made
is not a world of born -- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if -- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go

-- E. E. Cummings

Classic quickies: 49th Parallel

2008-09-10T22:08:00.003-06:00

Combining elements of Hitchcockian suspense, propaganda for the war effort, Canadian travelogue and paean to the virtues of the Canadian people, diversity and democracy, the 1941 49th Parallel is both fun and compelling to watch.

This is one of the earlier collaborations of director Michael Powell and screenwriter Emeric Pressburger -- who won an Oscar for this film. It's framed as an effective piece of propaganda aimed squarely at encouraging U.S support for the Allies. As the survivors of a destroyed Nazi submarine work their way from Hudson Bay toward neutral America, they encounter an extensive catalog of Canadian types. The contrast between the simple, generous, honest, diverse and proud North Americans and the arrogant, elitist Nazis is drawn ever more clearly, even as the noose tightens on the fleeing Germans.

Well written, directed and acted by a strong cast including Laurence Olivier, Trevor Howard and Raymond Massey, this release of 49th Parallel is fresh evidence that Criterion DVDs are reviving important films.

Summer movie rundown

2008-09-09T21:27:00.010-06:00

Saw a few, missed a bunch (many intentionally). Some thoughts in retrospect:

Iron Man - surprisingly light and fun through the first two-thirds, a good super-hero date movie; Robert Downey Jr. is seriously back, part 1
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - reasonably entertaining kids' fantasy actioner, bit of a disappointment with a slightly mean-spirited feel
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - the title indicates a poorly focused Maguffin, which is OK, because we came to see Harrison Ford crack wise and crack his whip, with exciting chases; delivers on expectations, but one hoped it might exceed
WALL-E - Pixar hits this one out of the park with charming characters, the awesome animation we expect, audacious story-telling, and a serious science fiction plot
Hellboy II: the Golden Army - Benicio Del Toro brings something sort of like Hellboy meets Pan's Labyrinth, with entertaining action and some amazing setpieces -- even if just a little predictable and without the narrative majesty of Pan's
Mama Mia! - oddly, I liked this better than the stage show, despite Pierce Brosnan's criminal take on "S.O.S." Meryl Streep seemed to be having fun. and its hard not to like Greek islands
Batman: the Dark Knight - compelling and truly dark, perhaps the best superhero film ever, with a haunting performance by Heath Ledger
Tropic Thunder - totally politically incorrect lampoon of Hollywood, utterly insensitive and often quite funny; Robert Downey Jr. is seriously back, part 2
Vicky Christina Barcelona - entirely lightweight, but with a fine cast; entertaining, well-written, well-acted and attractive fluff. Javier Bardem shows his range as a sensitive romantic artist in contrast with his well-remembered cold-blooded killer in No Country for Old Men. The dialog here is pure Woody Allen, but the Spanish scenery creates a nice departure.

100 Movies, 100 Quotes, 100 Numbers

2008-09-09T21:15:00.003-06:00

OK, its not new. But some call this the all-time best Youtube video. I wouldn't attest to that, but this clever compilation from Florida librarian Alonzo Mosley is sure fun.

WALL-E

2008-07-16T15:43:00.000-06:00

WALL-E is a treat to watch. It is cute, funny, horrifying, and touching. WALL-E is the last of the robots that were left to clean up Earth while humanity went on a five year cruise. However, it has been 700 years and WALL-E hasn't come close to making Earth livable again. Enter EVE who changes WALL-E's life forever.

There is little to no dialog for the first half or so of the film, but it still manages to draw you in. WALL-E is probably one of the best movies of the year. It has wonderful characters, a good strong plot, beautiful animation and backgrounds, and it works on enough levels to keep adult sci-fi nerds interested (that would be myself and another certain blogger included). The fate of humanity in WALL-E will hopefully make people take a look at their lives and the way we treat not only the Earth but also our own bodies. The way WALL-E lives should gives us hope and remind us to enjoy the wonder that is our world.

I gotta say that this movie had a theater full of 20 and 30 somethings on the edge of their seats and not making a sound. Go see this movie.

Top American Films

2008-06-19T14:02:00.004-06:00

The American Film Institute has created a new list of the top 100 films by creating lists of the top 10 films in 10 different genres. Check out the list on their website. Movie buffs will also enjoy trying their quiz.

Library Journal does Urban Fantasy

2008-06-16T06:17:00.003-06:00

Recommended article: the June 1 issue of LJ has a terrific overview of urban fantasy literature: The City Fantastic by Nanette Wargo Donohue. There's an introduction and a fairly extensive annotated bibliography. Sections of the essay include:

Introduction
Folkloric tradition
Vampires, werewolves, & fairies
Genre confusion
Shape-shifting formats
Collection development resources
Core titles in two areas (see full article for all titles & annotations)

Traditional Urban Fantasy

Bull, Emma. War for the Oaks

de Lint, Charles. Dreams Underfoot

Gaiman, Neil. Neverwhere

Contemporary Urban Fantasy

Briggs, Patricia. Moon Called

Butcher, Jim. Storm Front

Hamilton, Laurell K. Guilty Pleasures

Harris, Charlaine. Dead Until Dark

Harrison, Kim. Dead Witch Walking

Vaughn, Carrie. Kitty and the Midnight Hour

Web Sites

Fangs, Fur, & Fey

Urban Fantasy Land

Asian Cinema: a Field Guide

2008-04-29T05:48:00.002-06:00

This useful reference guide, published in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, gives a good overview of the scope of Asian cinema and the works of prominent directors. The author, Tom Vick, does Asian film work at the Smithsonian, and this 274 page guide, published in 2007, provides a timely introduction to a subject of increasing interest.

While many Americans are familiar with major Chinese and Japanese film-makers, well established and influential here, other noted artists are less familiar. The book provides general coverage of more familiar subjects, but devotes more individual attention to those about whom less is known. There is also an emphasis on films that are available in the U.S.

Separate chapters deal with China, Japan, India, Hong Kong, Korea, Iran, Taiwan, South & Southeast Asia, and Central Asia & the Middle East. There is a good index and bibliography.

At a time when the world seems smaller, and American attention is often drawn to Asia in negative ways, this book points to another dimension of the many peoples and cultures from Turkey to Japan.

Time travelling

2008-04-22T07:07:00.007-06:00

I've been spending a lot of time in the early 19th century lately. Without premeditated intent, I've found a pattern in recent reading and viewing:

Desolation Island by Patrick O'Brian (book & audiobook)
Sense and Sensibility (PBS Masterpiece TV)
The Jane Austen Book Club (DVD)
Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik

Patrick O'Brian's rich legacy of Aubrey/Maturin novels was most famously developed into the film Master and Commander: the Far Side of the World. The story of two friends -- the bluff, hearty, Captain "Lucky" Jack Aubrey, and the Irish-Catalonian naval surgeon, natural historian and spy Stephen Maturin -- follows them through the Napoleonic wars, the War of 1812, and other adventures.

It's been said that O'Brian writes about what the men were doing while Jane Austen's heroines anguished over matrimonial prospects. Indeed the second and third Aubrey/Maturin books humorously and successfully satirize Austen. But O'Brian shines in the painstaking historical detail, the period language, and above all in action sequences. I'm currently in the eighth book of the series, but the sixth, Desolation Island, was the beginning of a three book story arc and contained stirring battles that almost redefine the term "page turner."

O'Brian's work is also well served in audiobooks with the work of excellent narrators, John Lee and Patrick Tull. Each brings different strengths, but both make it a joy to listen. Lee's work on Desolation Island makes it difficult to stop listening, with fine voice characterizations and narrative power.

Sense and Sensibility, a two part-adaptation on PBS' Masterpiece, is one of the finest screen translations of Jane Austen. Written by Andrew Davies, who famously adapted Pride and Prejudice as a mini-series, this new production holds its own with Emma Thompson's wonderful 1995 feature film. Wonderfully produced, cast, acted and filmed with strong direction, this is a must see for Austen fans.

The Jane Austen Book Club, the film of Karen Joy Fowler's novel, is fun and entertaining chick-flick stuff. But with a large ensemble cast, the screenplay does not have room for deep characterizations, and the movie feels light-weight. The cast turns in good performances as a group reads Austen's novels and applies them to personal problems, but the whole seems contrived.

Empire of Ivory, on the other hand, was a pleasant surprise. I read the first books in Naomi Novik's fantasy series awhile back and enjoyed them, but thought they were fairly predictable. The premise is goofily engaging -- what if the British and French employed fighting dragons during the Napoleonic wars? But the result was engaging but slight.

During the four books of the series, however, Novik has continued to develop larger themes. And now she kicks it up a notch in both seriousness and imagination. She continues to use human exploitation of dragons as an analog for the 19th century slave trade. Here she mixes in the discovery of a hidden, advanced pan-African empire that threatens European dominance. In the earlier books, dragons sometimes seemed curiously tacked on to world history as we know it. Novik has gotten bolder, giving her secondary world a stronger narrative life.

The Forbidden Kingdom

2008-04-21T21:08:00.006-06:00

So sue me, I like Jackie Chan movies. Thus it happens that I really enjoyed The Forbidden Kingdom. It's more of a guilty pleasure than great cinema, but I thought it was a fun time. A bit predictable, but still fun.

The story of the Monkey King and the Journey to the West is a classic of Chinese literature. This American-Chinese production seems to fuse many elements from the classic story with plot devices from The Wizard of Oz, -- an American teenager mysteriously journeys to a magical place and has to journey with strange companions to defeat an evil ruler, before he can be sent home. And it works pretty well, as long as you don't think too hard and enjoy the ride.

Jet Li gives every appearance of gleefully portraying the Monkey King, but things kick up a notch when Jet Li and Jackie Chan are fighting together. Jackie seems to be reprising his Drunken Master character. This sure seemed like classic Saturday matinee fare, updated with 21st century FX and martial arts wire work. I was waiting for the double feature -- would it be Tarzan or Roy Rogers?

All things considered, the Monkey King has fared worse. The graphic novel American Born Chinese may have done the legend better justice, but as screen adaptations go, this is a durn sight better than Dragonball Z!