The Blogger Book Fair is Coming Soon!

Exciting news!  I'm participating in the Blogger Book Fair by reviewing a novel for an up and coming author!  So today I'm hijacking the blog to tell you all about this awesome event and all the bloggers participating.  There's still time to sign up so check out the info below and get ready for awesome events next month! 

 

Check in to the Blogger Book Fair, and book your trip to far away places!

July 22-26, 2013

Authors and Book Bloggers, Sign ups for the July 2013 Blogger Book Fair will close on June 15 at midnight central time, so get your registrations in to participate!

As of 6/4/2013, we have:

Authors: 89
Books: 233
Bloggers: 14

 If you haven't yet registered, you can find all of the information on the Blogger Book Fair page.

1. Check out the Code of Conduct
2. Fill out either the Author Sign Up form or the Blogger Sign Up form (Deadline June 15)
3. Kayla will match everyone with hosts and send out this information to you after sign-ups close
4. Check out the events--all authors are eligible to participate in the events, and if you have an event you'd like to host, just fill out the simple Event Sign Up Form--all of this information can be found on the Events! page (Deadline July 8).
5. If you're interested in hosting a giveaway to drive traffic to your site, sign up via the Giveaway Sign Up form (Deadline July 15).
6. And if your book will be FREE or $0.99 for the duration of the Fair, you can sign up on the Free and $.99 Book Sign Up Forms (Deadline July 15).

Events:

Art Fiction Gala hosted by Lucie Smoker

Does your fiction promote the visual arts--through featuring an artist, painting, sculpture, performance art, etc? Then, consider entering Lucie's Art Fiction Gala. The Art Fiction Gala is a virtual celebration of fiction that highlights the visual arts. Dress up in your finest, pick up some friends--a bottle of wine--and sample mind-blowing fiction that crosses the line between literary and visual art. Plus a gallery of art featuring reading. More information & entry instructions

Three Wishes hosted by Kirstin Pulioff

Introduce your characters to the world. Kirstin Pulioff invites you to ask your main character, "If you found a magic genie lamp, what would be your three choices?" More information & entry instructions

Flash Fiction Challenge II hosted by Thomas Winship

Get ready to exercise your flash fiction muscles. For the Flash Fiction Challenge II, Thomas Winship will provide an opening line. From there, entrants will craft a flash fiction piece of approx 500 words. Entries will be displayed on Thomas' blog Vaempires during the BBF, spread out evenly across the five days, in order of receipt. More information & entry instructions
 

Snapshot Synopsis Contest hosted by Fel at The Peasants Revolt

Challenge: chisel your synopsis down to 50 words or less. Voting will be open throughout the fair for visitors to vote on their favorite Snapshot Synopsis. More information & entry instructions

Reader's Choice Awards hosted by Sherri at Shut Up & Read

All books registered for the Blogger Book Fair are automatically entered into the running for the Reader's Choice Awards. Voting will be open from July 22 to July 25. More information

Indie Soap Box Files hosted by Shah Wharton

Take a turn on the Soap Box. Shah invites speculative fiction writers to write a guest post about being an indie (or hybrid) writer. More information & entry instructions Restrictions: Speculative fiction writers only

Monster Menagerie hosted by Noree at Trip the Eclipse

What's your favorite monster or supernatural creature? Feature your creature in a flash fiction piece (500-800) words to be featured on Trip the Eclipse. Visitors will vote on their favorite piece. More information & entry instructions

What's Your Theme Song? Hosted by Maghon Thomas

Maghon Thomas is a fan of music, so she's turning it into a competition, hosted on her blog, Happy Tails and Tales. Tell Maghon what the theme song of your book(s) is or match a song to your favorite scene and her followers will vote on their favorites. More information & entry instructions

Office Romances: Character Job Interviews hosted by Lily Bishop

Lily Bishop at Don't Call Me Sugar, wants to know: Do the jobs that your characters have impact their relationship, or is your characters' job incidental to the story? This event is tailored for romantic fiction, but all are welcome. More information & entry instructions

Ways to Help:

Donate to the Blogger Book Fair via the BBF Donation Fund. To help get the word out about BBF, we would like to place ads on Facebook, Goodreads and other places, but to do, so we need a little help. We'd also like to have some BBF sponsored giveaways, so money donated would also go toward prizes. NO MONEY WILL BE KEPT BY ANY ORGANIZER OR PARTICIPANT.

Spread the word! Share the Fair on your social media accounts and show off the Blogger Book Fair logo in your blog's sidebar.

Join us on:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Goodreads
• Google +

And My Next Read Is...

So, a couple of weeks ago I was browsing the blogs, as I often do, and I came across one of those raffle-copter giveaway thingies for a new book release.  I read on and discovered that the amazing Charmaine Clancy was not only giving away copies of her book over at her website dream... write... publish  but also a chance to win a Kindle Fire for those who entered the drawing by downloading her book.  Intrigued, I read on and learned that although I could not download the book (as I do not own a Kindle) I could still enter the drawing by blogging about the book.  The book, for those who don't know, is the story of 12 year old sleuth and her trusty sidekick Spade, the miniature schnauzer, investigating a dognapping at a dog show.  Sounds adorable, right?  I certainly think so.

Now, as you all know, I love writing book reviews.  (See yesterday's post for evidence of how much.)  And I've seen countless bloggers who regularly post reviews, author interviews, cover reveals, giveaway blog hops and all sorts of other helpful things for the lovely authors they're in contact with.  And I figured "What the heck?"  So I went ahead and e-mailed Charmaine to see how I could get involved.

Shockingly enough (and yes, that's sarcasm), Charmaine was incredibly sweet in her reply and offered to get me her book in whatever format worked for me.  At which point I thought "Boy, that was easy!" and kicked myself for not doing this sooner.

So my next read, obviously enough, will be Dognapped? A Dog Show Detective Mystery by the wonderful Charmaine Clancy which you can go download for your kindle here.  (And once you've done that, it'd be really silly not to enter the drawing for a Kindle Fire by going to Charmiane's site and entering in your order number by July 7th.)  I will be posting my review and a kick-ass interview with Charmaine (as soon as I come up with some kick-ass interview questions) telling us all about how the book came to be here on this blog.  So stay tuned!

Book Review: The Pleasure of My Company

Before I begin this review, I have to take a minute to draw your attention to the absurd level of talent contained within the one Steve Martin.  He is widely considered the funniest stand-up comic of all time (quite the label for a trade so unforgiving and harsh).  Every movie I’ve ever seen of him I have absolutely adored.  Every time he’s been on SNL (which is quite a lot) he’s been hysterical.  His writing is entirely too good for someone who should’ve been  otherwise occupied with a bustling film career.  And as if all that weren’t enough, he’s now making quite a name for himself as a skilled banjo player.  Is there anything this man can’t do?  It’s just absurd.

Ah-hem, sorry- just had to get that out of my system.  On to the review!

The Pleasure of My Company was my first exposure to Steve Martin’s serious feature-length works.  Though I knew he had the ability to create beautiful character studies as I’ve seen Shopgirl I didn’t read the book it was based on so this is the first time.  I was, to put it mildly, blown away.

I’m going to start by critiquing the main character himself since that is the focus of the story.  Daniel Pecan Cambridge is a genius and, like many geniuses, his brain’s excess intelligence has limited the man himself.  His particular form of limitation comes in the form of a rather extreme case of OCD.  He counts, performs mathematical equations, lays out grids upon the world he sees, breaks down time into smaller, more sensible fractions.  And he has used all of these abilities to impose a set of constrictions on himself so severe that he can barely stand to leave his apartment.

He has rules he uses to keep his mind- which would otherwise become so transfixed on the irrational nature of existence- occupied.  He avoids curbs as their “illogical elevation” confounds him so the only places he can get to are ones that a circuitous walking route with scooped-out opposing driveways will lead him to.  He keeps the bulb wattage in his apartment at a stable 1125 watts which requires a constant dance of turning on and off certain bulbs as he enters and exists rooms.  He finds solace in creating magic squares- which are sort-of like a geniuses’ version of sudoku where instead of each row of three equaling 15 there are 16 rows adding up to 491,384.   (Yeah, my brain hurt just looking at the thing.)  But, as he points out, “my salvation, the making of the square, was so pointless; there was no person attached to it, no person to shut me out or take me in.”

Which enlightens us to the largest, most devastating consequence of his illness: a sense of loneliness so deep that you, the reader, feel it in your heart, as if it were your own.  The words Martin uses to describe his melancholy are so soulful that I found myself often taking a breath as I read, trying to separate myself from the mind of this character who I so connected to.  His thesis: "There are few takers for the quiet heart."  Words so simple that I ached for young Daniel, praying that he would find a way to release himself from his prison.

There is one passage that sums up his fears, his beliefs and his realty perfectly that I just have to share with you:  “I guessed that one day the restrictions I imposed on myself would end.  But first, it seemed that my range of possible activities would have to iris down to zero before I could turn myself around.  Then, when I was finally stoic and immobile, I could weigh and measure every exterior force and, slowly and incrementally, once again allow the outside in.  And that would be my life.” 

Coming from a place that dark it's amazing that Daniel is able to emerge but he does, and in the only way one can: human connection.  He forms his relationships almost by accident, instinctually picking up on cues people give him, reading them and responding to them like a reflex.  And because of the people he is surrounded by he is drawn into them, the messy quality of their lives, the idiosyncrasies of them.  His neighbor who leads him to take his first few triumphant steps over a curb simply by addressing them as the inconsequential things he views them to be.  His case manager who inadvertently creates the opportunity for him to instinctively rescue a child.  And the one person who has the biggest impact on him- Teddy, a 2 year old too innocent, Dan concluded, to be corrupted by his craziness.  "If, as the books say, my habits exist to keep demons at bay, what was the point of demonstrating them in front of someone who was so clearly not a demon?  Who, in fact, was so clearly a demon's opposite?"

This is where all of those reviews labeling this book as gentle start to make sense.  Because his resolution is anticlimactic, quiet.  Found in the small moments where an immeasurable connection occurs.  The tiny triumphs that seem so inconsequential in "real life".  The space that exists between two people when they are just being.  There's no grand epiphanies, no life-changing cataclysms- just the quiet existence of a man living life which is made striking by the lack of life we've seen him trapped in.  It's a conclusion that many authors, filmmakers and creators fail to grasp and it struck me more deeply than most of the grand tales I've ever read.

Before I end, and I apologize for the length here, but I just have to say a couple of things about the writing itself.  I found the narrative fascinating.  This story could not possibly told in anything other than first person and while Daniel is clearly a reliable narrator he is not always telling the story linearly.  There are the memories of the past which we need to make sense of the present, of course.  But there are also the statements about future events which have not yet happened, dropped into the moment because of his hindsight about what the moment means, pointing out the transitions for us before they have actually started.  It's not foreshadowing in the classic sense I'm used to.  It’s something I haven't seen done in this particular manner and it’s definitely going to stick in my memory the next time I find myself writing in first person.

But the most striking quality about this book is that it’s written almost like a poem.  It's incredibly short because each word was so painstakingly chosen that there is no excess, no unnecessary descriptors, nothing that doesn't convey exactly what was meant to be conveyed.  Because of this, the number of passages that take on a lyrical, alliterative quality are almost overwhelming.  You can scarcely flip through more than two pages of my now deeply loved book without finding a sentence, a passage or a paragraph that I highlighted because of its beauty.  I want to memorize these lines and recite them.  I want to sear them into my brain so I can be lifted by them when life becomes just too much.

In conclusion, I loved this book.  And I can now say with certainty that Daniel Pecan Cambridge is one of my favorite characters of all time and I will hold him in my heart along with Wemmick, Bilbo and so many other greats forever.

My Next Read

I first discovered Steve Martin’s writing back in high school when a friend of mine gave me Pure Drivel for my birthday.  It was the funniest thing I’d ever read at the time and fit right into my conception of Steve Martin and what he does- funny guy, right?  It wasn’t until I read Cruel Shoes that my concept of Steve Martin got turned on its head.

To be perfectly blunt, I didn’t get Cruel Shoes.  Reading up on it I learned that the scenarios and stories in that book were derived far more from his college studies of philosophy than on the situational comedy I saw of him on SNL and his movies.  I concluded that I just didn’t know enough philosophy to get the stories and questioned the several other books I’d already gotten from my wish list.

Which is why it’s only now, over a year since Cruel Shoes, that I’m willing to try again.  The name of the book is "The Pleasure of My Company" and it tells the story of a young neurotic man living in L.A. trying to overcome what sounds like a pretty severe case of agorophobia.  At least that's the tagline. 

I have hope that I’ll get this, for several reasons.  Firstly, it’s a novel rather than a collection of short stories so the characters will remain pretty consistent (I assume).  Secondly, it’s described as “gentle” by more than one reviewer on the back cover.  I find this word terribly reassuring.  And third, it was written only ten years ago as opposed to the 36 years it’s been since Cruel Shoes.  I think his humor has maybe mellowed a little bit in that time, become a little more accessible, maybe?  I hope so.

Either way, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Book Review: Come To Me by Amy Bloom

I just finished reading “Come to Me” by Amy Bloom.  This was my very first excursion into the literary world of this author and having read this collection of stories I am now confident that it won’t be my last.

I try not to use the expression “hauntingly beautiful” to describe things because it sounds trite to me.  But in this case, it applies.  I found these images, sentences, even sentence fragments floating through my mind while driving to work or walking my dog.  These melodic phrases would drift through my memory and remind me of the emotions I felt while reading the piece.  I’d find myself daydreaming about the stories during work when my mind wandered.  You know, haunting me.

She touches on the depths of human emotion in these amazingly succinct ways- memories of smells, sounds, sights and physical sensations that are so fleshed out they feel as though they’ve come from your own memory.  The mundane details that make up a life appear as songs from long ago that you remember the melody to but can’t quite place the words.  Like faded photographs that evoke such intense emotion it steals your breath and you can’t understand how something so fragile could be real.

And the stories are so heartbreaking that the emotions hit you just as hard as the beautiful language she uses to describe them.  Grief, loss, love, devotion, longing and feeling forever lost within the confines of your own life are all displayed so vividly here that it’s actually a little overwhelming.  This is why it took me so long to get through such a short book- each story was so intense and emotionally draining that I had to stop and take a break afterwards, distract myself with something light and easy.

Perhaps it is because she is a kindred sprit- a therapist during the day as well (or at least she was when this early collection was published)- that I connected so well to these stories.  But I don’t think that’s why.  I think that it’s because she is a writer- pure and simple- and she does what all writers seek to do.  She captures human life in her words and lays the lives of her characters bare for us to see.

I can imagine, or I like to imagine myself being a better writer for having read her work.  That’s what I think of the talents of Amy Bloom.  And in the end, isn’t that the best compliment you can give?

If you haven’t encountered her go here to check her out.  You'll be doing yourself a favor if you do.

Next Up

So, lets just ignore the fact that there's all of two days left in April and I just finished my March read and pretend that I'm on schedule for the challenge.  I know I'm not, but just pretend.

One of the biggest reasons for me doing this challenge- in addition to concluding that I'd be smarter, a better writer, and better spoken if I read more- is the fact that I have boxes worth of unread books lining my bookshelves and waiting to be read.  It's hard to justify buying more books, and there are so many more I want to buy, until I've read the ones I have.  So towards that end, I took a look at my bookshelf this morning and zoned in on the ones I haven't read. 

A lot of them are somewhat recent additions- Christmas presents and birthday gifts of novels by authors I already know and love.  The next in the series, another Amazon recommendation, something related to my interests and activities.  But some, like this one, I obtained so long ago that I can't even remember where or when I got them.  I tend to do a lot of impulse buys in used bookstores- they're like crack to me and I can't resist the need to get more.  I think this might have been one of those purchases.  All I know is, I haven't read it yet.

I'm kind-of excited, it's been a while since I read a short story collection.  And this one's got a lot of impressive recommendations on the back.  Plus Amy Bloom is a brand-new author to me and that's always an exciting prospect. 

So, no- there's no way I'm going to read through this whole thing in two days.  But May is 31 days long so I'm hopeful I can finish this and another one before the month is out.  So stay tuned for my review of this.

Oh!  And if you've read Amy Bloom or enjoyed her yourself please leave a comment and let me know.  I love learning about fantastic writers from the people who love them!

Book Review: Naked Heat

 

For those of you just coming in, an explanation: there is a fantastic TV show on ABC called Castle in which Nathan Fillion (squee!!) plays a crime novelist named Richard Castle who gets inspiration for his books by working with the homicide detectives of NYC's 14th precinct.  In the show, Castle gets the bulk of his inspiration from his muse Kate Becektt (Stana Katic) and creates his new MC Nikki Heat in her image.  Like his previous MC Derek Storm Nikki is to be featured in a series of books, the first titled Heat Wave (check out my review of that here) with this being the second in the series.  If you're still confused, go here.

At any rate, as I said Naked Heat is the second in the series so the novelty has sort-of worn off by now.  While the first book had me giddy with references to the show every other page now it's just par for the course.  Which isn't to say that it isn't still immensely fun for any fan of the show to catch so many familiar characteristics of the beloved characters, their quips and their mannerisms but simply to say that there's going to have to be something else to keep you invested.

Naked Heat uses the same tools in that endeavor as the show uses.  The plot is never as straight forward as you expect and even the twists aren't really predictable.  By season five my friends and I have taken to guessing who the killer will be "I still say it's the bellhop" or "I bet you anything it'll end up being the chef" but the show still manages to throw us.  The book does an even better job of that because it has a lot more time and text with which to play with you.

This story is made more interesting by the fact that one of the main sources of clues- the body- is stolen armed robbery style on route to the medical examiner so the characters have to spend the first quarter of the book retrieving it before they can really get down to the investigation.  Once they do the reader gets thrown head-first into the world of shady gossip intrigue and the dark side of fame with a super creepy contract killer thrown in for fun.

What I loved about this book is the same as what I love about the series.  They're ghost written by one of the staff writers of the show so it's no surprise that it feels so familiar (and therefore loveable) in book format.  My only real complaint last time was that in the book they actually show the sex scenes (whereas in the show it all happens off screen) and the language is straight out of a harlequin romance novel.  I'm happy to report that the sex in this novel is less overt and subsequently didn't bother me as much.  Plus they reveal something about Rook that sort-of pokes fun at the whole genre and makes it just another characteristic to love about the character rather than an "ick" inducing departure from crime and cop banter.

All in all I'm left with the same conclusion that I made about the first book: if you love the series, you'll love the books.  They're not going to change your life and they're not what I would consider great literature.  But just because they're fun doesn't mean they're dumb- all the wit that makes one loves the series is clear on each page so you can enjoy it without feeling guilty.  

Needless to say, I'll be reading the next one, Heat Rises, soon.

Up Next

Nicholas Nickleby was engrossing.  It was intense.  It was challenging, interesting and very filling.  But most of all, it was LONG.  So this month, to take a complete and total departure from all that, I'm reading the second book in the Nikki Heat series from Castle.  I'm assuming that it will be easy, fun and very light.  And of course, short.  Short is good after an 800 pager.  Stay tuned.

#NaNoReMo Book Review: Nicholas Nickleby

Well, it took me a full 30 days rather than the given 28, but I finally finished Nicholas Nickleby.  I have to say that I’m proud of myself, even with the extra time it took.  This was NOT an easy read.  And I’ve been thinking that it isn’t necessarily Dickens, but more just the style writing of the time.  I say this because many of the things that made this such a laborious process were the same things that made getting through Pride and Prejudice so difficult last year: the stylistic trademarks of the literature itself, rather than the voice of the author.

Sure, Dickens has a penchant for what I would qualify as run-on sentences.  A large number of those contained in the book average at a paragraph in length with more commas and semicolons than my mind could take in easily.  I found myself having to re-read several parts as my brain tripped over the wording and tried to make sense of the syntax which was so unfamiliar to me.  Not to mention that this book, like Pride and Prejudice, is now riddled with highlighted words and written-in definitions that came from stopping to look up something in the dictionary every few pages.  I have to admit, a lot of them seemed like pretty useful vocabulary and I’d be proud if I could absorb them all into my rather limited word bank.  But there were, of course, some that described things that one wouldn’t find outside of nineteenth century London and therefore were interesting only for historical purposes.  But again, that’s the style of the time and it’s impossible to look at this book separate from the period it took place in.

It’s also impossible to look at this book separate from the author who wrote it.  I’m sure that many might view that as a shortcoming, but it’s how Dickens made his career and earned his spot in the poet’s corner of Westminster Abbey.  Dickens is famous for his depictions of London lifestyle: the inhumane school systems, the corrupted legal system, the horror of the debtor’s prisons and the immoral treatment of all those who can’t buy their place in high society.  And his voice not only criticized but inspired enough public outrage over these systems as to actually bring about some change.  This is very clear in this volume where he takes aim at the Yorkshire school systems which he depicts with more clarity and reality than any of the characters.  People were so appalled by the depiction of Dotheboys Hall that many of the Yorkshire schools were shut down due to disgraced parents pulling their neglected children out of them.

Another setting which seems very real and fleshed out is the theatrical one in which the troupe of actors live.  The actors themselves make up their world with their costumes, speeches and posing.  And the tricks and tools they use to get funding, find new locales to play in, entice an audience and create their dramas seems like vivid recollections rather than creations (because they were).

But the bulk of the action takes place in London itself and Dickens fleshes out each street, neighborhood and district with the sights, smells, sounds, actions and characteristics from his own experience.  And the country side which he found so comforting comes out just as beautifully as they must have looked to him.  Every book of his that I’ve read has excelled in this way and again, I think that’s what made him so well-liked.  People would read his stories and know exactly where they were and what he was describing.  And his depictions of the small homes in which our heroes stay are so comforting one could wrap themselves up in them like a blanket.

Perhaps it is because his settings are so intensely real that his characters are critiqued so disparagingly.  A brief disclaimer here: Nicholas Nickleby is one of Dickens’s early works and comes from his light period- his career having been separated into two parts of light (earlier works) and dark (later works).  Every other book of his that I’ve read comes from his later era and has a decidedly darker tone.  In Nickleby, while there’s a lot of dark stuff that happens plot-wise, the bulk of the scenes are comedic and therefore the characters are meant to be humorous.  All of the actors, some of the family members, the high and low society peoples and even some of the villains look funny, do funny things and behave in funny ways.

I don’t know if it is because of this that so many of them are so one-dimensional, but that’s what they are.  They’re characters, images, stereotypes rather than real people and while they earn laughs they rarely show anything beyond the surface.  Even the main characters are pretty shallow and seem to be either plot devices (as is the case with the Cheeryble brothers or, as I call them, the two Santas) or blank slates upon which a moral structure is built.  The woman, especially, are terribly shallow and seem more like caricatures serving the satire or personifications in a morality play rather than real characters with thoughts, wants, or shortcomings.

The only character with any real depth is the primary antagonist who is more introspective, questions his own motives more and has a larger arc than any other character.  Ralph Nickleby is both the most evil and my favorite character in the entire book.  And several others who seemed promising in the beginning end up being big disappointments.

This was a harsh reality for me because after Great Expectations where the woman are just as conniving, scheming and struggling with their deficiencies as the men are I had hoped to see a similarly rich development here.  Especially since, unlike Great Expectations, Nickleby is told from the third person narrative so there’s a lot more room for observations,  judgments and questions.  While Dickens takes full advantage of that when talking about the characteristics of London lifestyle he drops it completely when talking about the woman here.  All this to say that when I make my next selection of Dickens it will certainly be from his darker era because it seems like that’s the place to find real character development.

Last but certainly not least, the plot.  Nicholas Nickleby is, at its most basic form, a love story.  There’s a double marriage at the end with a third close on its tail and all the heroes, for the most part, do live happily ever after.  There's also a lot of filial love and the love one feels in friendship which (in my opinion) hits home a lot more than straight-forward romance.  And it's is worth note, that another main character who is tragic at both the start and finish is mentioned in the very end: the very last scene has the children from these marriages playing on the grave of the poor, mistreated Smike.  It's a last reminder of the harsh reality of Dotheboys hall and of the wreakage left by our main protagonist's life and it was very gratifying.

But the interesting, meaty stuff is the many sub plots that proliferate the entire tome- the schemes, the downfalls of villains, the comeuppances of people who earn their new stations.  Dickens often juxtaposes these by splitting scenes, trying to introduce humor when things seem bleak and reality when things seems too hopeful.  And he often has different characters overlapping each other on the timeline and will remind you at the end of one scene that you only what these characters did, so he'll take you back to see what the other were doing.  It keeps you on your toes and breaks up the narractive in a way that I rarely see.

And of course, most of these both originate and end with Ralph Nickleby (thus why he has so much room to gain dimensions and why he's my favorite).  But the big problem with that, of course, is that the main character goes through all of this right along with him and ends up looking just as shallow at the end as he did in the beginning.  There’s a sense of having just witnessed a bad actor do a part that might have been much better liked with someone superior portraying him. 

None of this is to say, strangely enough, that I didn’t like the book.  In the end, I would have to say I did.  While it doesn’t hold a candle to any of his other works I’ve read it is endearing in its lightheartedness, I like a lot of the ideas espoused in the pages, the sub plots are interesting enough that I’ll remember them and Ralph Nickleby is a good enough villain that he will be added to my list of great Dickens characters, right along with Miss Havisham- a woman!  And most of all, Dickens plays around enough stylistically that it serves as a good example of how to broaden traditional third person narrative so my appreciation for him as an author is not at all deteriorated from having read this.

In the end I’m glad that I read this, but I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone.  If you’re a hard-core Dickens fan, it’s a must read.  If you’re a Dickens hater, skip it because this will probably just give you more ammunition to fire.  And if you’re a Dickens virgin, start with something from his later works because that will open up the door a lot wider than this could.

The Giant End of February Everything Post

With so many things to address, I'm not gonna piece-meal.  So here’s what’s up with everything relevant at the moment.

#NaNoReMo

Nicholas Nickleby is not an easy read.  I know that I’ve defended Charles Dickens in the past from those who claimed that he was entirely too verbose to earn their respect and although I’m not done defending him (or being a fan of his, in general) I must say that I REALLY get their point now.  Great Expectations is shockingly short in comparison to many of his other tales, so we’ll leave that out of the comparison.  But David Copperfield was a long read by anyone’s gauge and I found it much easier to get through for some reason.  I’m not sure why, but this book has made me achingly aware of how long it is, how the majority of the sentences contained within its pages are a paragraph long and contain more commas than I think should legally be allowed in a single sentence, how unnecessary some of the details are and how damned long it’s taking me to get through.  I’ve been reading everyday and I’m still close to 200 pages off from the end.

But this challenge is about reading a classic, not sticking to the rather arbitrary rule of doing it in the shortest month of the year.  And I console myself that if it had been January I’d still have 3 days left to finish this thing.  So I’m gonna keep reading as much as I can during my free time with the aim of completing it by Saturday and assuming I finish it by then I’m gonna count it as a win, even though it’ll technically be March.  Stay tuned for the review.

Buddy

So we got the biopsy results on Tuesday.  As I said before, we were pretty confident they were going to be negative; our thinking being that if he actually had this there would have been some other symptoms to verify that.  So when I got a voicemail from the surgeon saying “everything looks good” I naturally interpreted that to mean “His liver is healthy” and “he doesn’t have microvascular dysplasia" (henceforth referred to as MD) and whatnot.  Dave and I had a brief sigh of relief over lunch during which we discussed what timeline we should pursue in terms of taking him off the special diet and planned to happily return to life as it was before the seizures.

Imagine our surprise when we called the doctor to discuss things in more detail and heard that he does, in fact, have MD.  There was a brief moment of “what, now?” during which we had to throw out our list of questions and come up with a bunch of news ones, primary of which was “Wait a second- he does?!?”  While reassuring us that MD is an extremely common (among small dogs) and easily manageable condition which should in no way negatively impact the health of our little guy, he failed to clearly explain to us how results showing that he definitely has a certain disease equate to “good”.

It wasn’t until our regular vet (who is way more attentive and on top of things than any doctor that’s ever treated me, a human) explained it to us in layman’s terms that we felt better.  She stated that yes, it is extremely common and that most dogs never show any signs of it and you’d never even know they had it and only a few need special medication or diet or have negative health problems because of it.  If not for the seizures, she said, we never would have even identified it.  And although the diet is the plan du jour it is by no means guaranteed to be required- we might still try to take him off of it at some point in the future and see how he does; cause chances are decent that he won’t even need it.  And while they’ll have to be aware when treating him with medications that’ll be processed in the liver in the future, that’s really the only special precautions we should need to take.

She also said that while we had been operating under the belief that the ultrasound we did when this all went down had been definitive in ruling out a shunt, this biopsy was done largely for the same reason so “good” meant “he doesn’t have a shunt”- which we thought we already knew.  Oy.  At any rate, while deflated, Dave and I are hopeful that once our poor little guy gets his stitches taken out and we can finally remove the cone (which he hates more than anything in existence) he’ll be back to normal and since this is all done he shouldn’t need surgery again- ever.  We’ve told him that everybody gets one and he’s blown his so now he’ll just have to shut up and be healthy.  (Being a dog, we’re concerned he didn’t quite understand what we were saying.  But we’ll keep trying.)

More Stress

Friday was a rough day for me.  With Buddy in surgery for most of the morning/early afternoon I was glued to my phone, anxiously awaiting updates from the vet.  While I refused to believe in even the possibility of Buddy not coming through it just fine, I was still pretty anxious to see that he did.  I had a brief but momentous sigh of relief upon hearing that he was ok which was shattered by the phone call home to tell my parents of this.

“Don’t freak out,” my dad said, “but mommy’s in the hospital.”

Don’t freak out?  Sure, no problem.  It’s not like I’ve been on edge all day anyway. 

Now, my mom had told me that she thought she might have a slight case of food poisoning when I’d spoken to her on Wednesday but I really didn’t think much of it because she’d told me that she was feeling better and thought it was done.  It wasn’t food poisoning and it wasn’t done.

We never technically found out what the hell it was- tests they did in the hospital came back negative for E. coli, salmonella and all the other big names in serious gastro-intestinal illness.  But IV fluids and liquid diet were useless in slowing down the vomiting and diarrhea.  She was admitted to the hospital Thursday night and wasn’t discharged until Tuesday.  TUESDAY.  That’s 8 full days of illness, 5 of which were spent in the hospital.

My aunt is a nurse practitioner and one of the smartest people I know.  Every crisis, every serious medical illness and every new diagnosis she’s on the phone with us talking about it, letting us know what cases of it she’s treated and how people dealt with it, e-mailing us information and helpful web sites and explaining what the doctor told us in clear terms that we can understand.  She is a saint.  And she called me to let me know her hypothesis: that this was one of 3 “super bugs” that were going around wreaking havoc on people’s digestive systems.  While some people get sick for a day or two with little impact on their ability to function, some people, like my mother, get really sick.  A perfect example of this is the fact that my father came down with similar symptoms on Sunday but was already starting to feel better by Monday night.  And because it’s a virus there’s not really all that much you can do other than wait for it to run its course.

When I first heard all this I was fully prepared to leave Dave in charge of Buddy and drive up to New York to see her.  My mother told me- in no uncertain terms- that Buddy needed me more than she did.  Thank God, because it seems quite possible that I could’ve gotten whatever she and my dad (and now my brother) had.

At any rate, this all served as a pretty big scare that ultimately amounted to a reminder of how dangerous these things we regularly get exposed to can be.  I wish there was some other lesson that came out if- like how to avoid contracting it.  But I suppose all you can really do is know that there’s the possibility of these things, and to not hesitate to seek out medical attention if you’re really sick.

So that’s been the week.  Crazy stressful, not the best for finishing a book, and overall something I’ll be very happy has passed once it’s done.

#NaNoReMo Update: Heroes and Villains

Imagine if a select minority of people, for no particular reason, were telepathic.  Not because of radioactivity or an alien ring or anything seen in comics, but just by birth.  They wouldn't look or necessarily act any differently then you or I, but they’d read everyone around them, know their motives and navigate accordingly.  Some people would undoubtedly use this power for good, others for evil, and others probably wouldn't know what to do with it.  But they’d all see the world very differently from those around them.

Well, that is the world of Nicholas Nickleby.  Save that instead of telepathy, our heroes and villains have what was once mistakenly described as common sense.  They see the world around them for what it really is, they can judge people by their actions rather than their appearances and they use these judgments to attempt to navigate the world.  At this point, there’s only a select few who clearly have this power- the book’s namesake, of course, his sister, their uncle and an associate of his who is somehow simultaneously more real and more mysterious than any of the other characters thus far.

Let’s begin with the book’s namesake, since he’s obviously our hero.  While shrewd, Mr. Nickleby is a very young man and therefore his powers of observation and sound judgment are tempered by his inexperience.  While quick on the pick-up he misses a lot when it comes to new situations, women and the business world.  However, he’s proving to be a quick wit so far and seems increasingly capable of changing his appearance depending on the context of the situations in which he finds himself (a talent aided by his time in the theater); so I assume we can expect a very interesting arc from him as the story progresses.

Next up is Mr. Ralph Nickleby, our primary antagonist and uncle to our hero.  While portrayed as a somewhat heartless man there’s a fierce practicality to him that actually has me preferring him to some of the other supposed heroes of the tale.  This comes from a difficult upbringing, not unlike what our hero experienced, which imparted Ralph with an unshakable belief that money is the only thing in the world that maters.  This belief has led him to lead a rather solitary life (since relationships are the one sure-fire way to lose money) and to avoid interactions which don’t directly serve a business-related purpose.  Although he often causes great injury to those around him I appreciate the logic with which he does it: it’s calculated, thought out and concluded best based on his belief system and this automatically puts him worlds ahead of those who injure for the sake of injury.  I’m looking forward to seeing how his arc progresses.

Nicholas has a sister, Kate, who is shockingly similar to him in disposition.  She is naturally sweet, terribly naive but also very aware of the people around her.  Like her brother, she is able to mimic the appearance expected of her, to a certain extent.  But unlike him, she is boxed in by the limitations of her sex in that time period and therefore must rely on the assistance of men to get what she needs in life.  Being true of heart she never purposefully manipulates, but speaks honestly (if a little dramatically) to those she encounters.  A characteristic which, needless to say, gets her into a lot of trouble.  I have to say that despite her true-of-heart nature I find her rather dull and am not terribly interested in what she’ll end up doing; especially because I imagine it’ll just be to marry a nice guy eventually.

Last but certainly not least is Mr. Newman Noggs.  Newman is Mr. Ralph Nickleby’s assistant and therefore ends up bearing a lot of bad news to his associates.  But he never hesitates to intervene when he deems such bad news reckless, deliberately hurtful, or extreme (which is often the case when it comes to Ralph's family).  Thankfully his employer seems to be oblivious to all of this meddling so he’s able to do a lot of good without consequence to his station; but he is greatly limited by that station and therefore confined to meddling rather than grand heroic acts.  He’s had the least on-screen time of any main character so far but these glimpses of him have only served to make the mystery that much more intriguing and I’d have to say I’m most interested in seeing how his story ends.

Although this is just a tiny portion of the many characters in the story it does represent a rather complete view of those with the power of discernment.  Everyone else I’ve seen to this point is rather clueless or one-dimensional.  They’re either lower class individuals foolishly worshiping, mimicking and discussing the upper class; upper class individuals defined by their possessions, mannerisms and money; ruthless villains that play like caricatures rather than people; whimsical actors defined by their craft or clueless followers with very little going on upstairs.  Yes, they serve up the majority of the humor, action and mechanisms of plot- but I doubt I’m going to remember any of them when the story is done.

I suspect I’ll meet one or two more individuals with this power as the plot progresses and they’ll have their own part to play in the overall arc.  But for now, those are the major players.  And I’ll have more to say on the writing (verbose!), the style (satire) and the settings in later posts.  In the meantime, I hope you’re all having fun with your own reads.

Me and Nicholas Nickleby

So last year, as part of my 2012 reading challenge, I began the daunting task of reading Nicholas Nickleby.  I have long been a fan of Dickens and I have long defended him against those who claimed that he was entirely too needlessly verbose to rightfully carry the credit so many literary scholars have given him over the years.  While I'm not about to abandon my stance that he is a great author I do have to admit that I found myself feeling acutely aware of the fact that he was being paid by the word as I slogged my way through the book. 

I was aware when I advanced through the chapters far more slowly than I thought I should be able to, I was aware when the month I had given myself to finish the book ended without me being even a quarter of the way through and I was painfully aware when I found myself procrastinating over and over again when I thought that I really should just sit down and read the damned thing.  After months of this I gave up on both the book and the reading challenge.

But I began this year by vowing to try it again and what better time to seek vengeance on my sloth than by challenging myself to finally finish the book for NaNoReMo, which John is once again hosting.  I admit, I find myself feeling very nervous about the fact that tomorrow marks the beginning of the shortest month of the year and I’m due to reach the end of this massive tome in only 28 days.  But I do have a significant head start and way more determination than I had the first time around- mainly because if I let this thing defeat me for a second time I will never forgive myself.

So this is me vowing to read- in its entirety- Nicholas Nickleby.  I will be linking back up to the Bathroom Monologues for blog hopping purposes as I post entries related to my progress and when I finally post my final review.  For those of you who are also participating, please post a comment and let me know so I can follow your progress as well.  For everyone else, wish me luck!

The History Of Moo Duk Kwan: A Non-Review

Quick note to the reader: I can’t do a regular book review of this book.  The translation (from Korean) prevents the flow of words that might pull someone in, the format is one of a scrap book of sorts filled with pictures and artifacts and the book is far too short to be critiqued the way you would a “real book”.  So I’m not going to.  I’m going to write about what I learned from it: my take on the history of Moo Duk Kwan.

Ah, hem.  The history of martial arts- any martial art, not just the one I study- is inevitably riddled with inconsistencies, contrary statements, gaps in the time line and more confusing answers than clarification.  Even when the timeline is relatively short (60 plus years for Tang Soo Do), it’s still difficult to get a clear idea of where it all started.

The reason for this is that the earliest form of martial arts (some variation of wrestling) can be found in just about every ancient culture known to man.  It pops up in historical records in Asia, Europe and the Middle East in various forms and then splits off into different styles that all claim to have originated in one specific locale.  Some people argue that all off these different forms originated separately and independently of each other while others state that the roots of modernly studied forms can be traced back to just a few cultures.  Trying to create a coherent timeline becomes virtually impossible to do without studying the entire history of the culture because of so many wars, military occupations and what I call knowledge hoarding.

Knowledge hoarding, for the purposes of this post, is the secretive way in which many individuals obtain a wealth of knowledge on a particular subject and then hide it away from the rest of the world to prevent anyone else from learning it.  This is something that human beings have done for as long as they’ve had the brain capacity to learn; but it’s especially prevalent in the history of martial arts.

In a practical way, this is totally understandable.  After all, I don’t want to teach you how to kill me.  But it makes studying the origins of any one form of martial arts really hard to do because it’s difficult if not impossible to access the information you need.

The first page of this book is a great demonstration of this: it’s a full page on how the only people authorized to teach Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan are instructors certified through the US Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan Federation and anyone not certified through that organization has basically no business teaching it.
 

This same tradition is the exact thing that made Hwang Kee’s education in martial arts so difficult for him.  He first observed someone fighting a group of men, totally outnumbered, using an open hand style of combat that he’d never seen before when he was seven years old.  He asked the man to teach him how to do this and the man said, predictably, “no”.   Hwang Kee, being a crafty little seven year old, went to this man’s house and basically spied on him and mimicked what he saw.  No formal training, no “Here’s how you do it”.  I can’t think of a better story to illustrate the point.

Then, you have the wars and military occupations which prevented the development and spread of many a great idea, martial arts being just one of them.  Korea was occupied by Japan from 1910 to 19 45 and during that time “all dimensions of Korean traditional cultural expression were prohibited”.  So even though there was an existing martial arts tradition- “Soo Bahk”- no one was allowed to study it.  (And now you’re all saying “Oh!  So that’s why Tang Soo Do was founded in 1945!”, right?) 

So little Hwang Kee, having observed but not been taught by this mysterious man, went on to do very well in school and begin work for the rail road company in Manchuria.  He was not exposed to martial arts again until he was 22 when he met a Chinese Master by the name of Kuk Jin Yang.  He met him through a friend at the railway, asked him to teach him and was promptly refused.  Yang’s excuse?  “I am not good enough to teach you.”  Hwang Kee visited him twice more, asked twice more, and was finally granted his request.

So, yay!  Finally at the age 22 our young founder is able to begin formal study… for all of a year before he had to return to Seoul.  So much for that.  Seoul, of course, is still occupied by the Japanese so there’s no formal study available to him.  But, he was able to find some books on Okinawan karate tucked away in the library of the Cho Sun Railway Bureau where he worked.  He studied these obsessively, practicing the moves described as best he could along with what he had learned from Master Yang.

As soon as Korea became an independent country he started his own school, formally teaching others what he had learned through his limited studies.  In the beginning, it was very, very difficult for his style to get its footing. Because of the Japanese occupation, no one had any idea of Soo Bahk or the Chinese martial arts and the name he used, “Hwa Soo Do” (translated as ‘art of the flower hand’) was nothing anyone had ever heard of.  His first group of students quit after three months.  He tried again.  His new group of students quit, again after about three months.

Feeling frustrated, Hwang Kee went downtown and met two karate masters who had formally studied in Japan- Sang Sup Chun and Won Kuk Lee.  They had both founded gyms there in Korea teaching Kong Soo Do and Tang Soo Do, respectively.  Both of these masters were experiencing growth in their schools because of the Japanese influence of their technique (even though the names are Chinese).  Being a practical man, Hwang Kee adopted the name Tang Soo Do for his teachings.  Within a few months his school was growing.

So again, yay!  He’s finally formally practicing karate… until the Korean war starts in 1950.  (Noticing the theme?)  He and his gym all moved south to seek safety from the north.  When the war ended, he was able to move back to Seoul, but had to practice in a gym without a proper floor because after all the destruction there wasn’t much prime real estate available.  But he and his students made do and the gym soon experienced growth again.

1953 to 1961 marked the most active and successful period in history for Mood Duk Kwan.  Hwang Kee published many books of his teaching as well as a monthly Moo Duk Kwan newsletter.  The art was widely recognized by the public and began to be taught in military bases of the US army.  And in 1961 the team was invited to the Goodwill Martial Arts Championship- the very first international competition featuring martial arts from Korea, China and Japan.  It earned Moo Duk Kwan international recognition.

Also, in 1957, Hwang Kee discovered the Moo Yei Do Bo Tong Ji- a book on Soo Bahk published 300 years earlier.  It is the only martial arts book from that era still available today.  Hwang Kee went through it at a microscopic level and incorporated its teachings into Moo Duk Kwan, attempting to bridge the gap of time and make Moo Duk Kwan into the traditional Korean Martial Art. 

All was well until May 16, 1961 when a military government was installed as a result of the April Revolution.  Lt. General Chong Hee Park took control of the government.  They immediately forced the gym to stop their monthly publications.  They fired the people instructing Moo Duk Kwan in the military bases “with no reason”.  They were prohibited from attending any international events. 

But perhaps most notable in this period of political unrest is the split between Tang Soo Do and Tae Kwon Do.  In 1964, the Tae Kwon Do group attempted to unify all Korean martial arts into one organization.  Tae Kwon Do had won favor in the Korean military during the Korean war and gained popularity when it was taught in the Korean military bases.  Supported by the government, pressure was placed on Moo Duk Kwan to join this system and Hwang Kee considered it because of this political pressure.  He ultimately refused for three reasons: 1) the fact that the official name would be Tae Kwon Do and he felt that they would lose the history of Soo Bahk, 2) they would be granted only 3 of 21 seats on the board of directors and 3) Moo Duk Kwan had previously been the leader in international activities/competitions.  (This is one of those historical stories that you can't but suspect would be told very differently from the other side...)

Hwang Kee’s refusal to join marked a huge shift in the popularity of the art.  Before this time, Moo Duk Kwan was practiced by over 70% of martial arts practitioners in Korea.  After this time, Tae Kwon Do replaced it as the most widely practiced martial art in Korea and, eventually, the world.  Many people split off from Mood Duk Kwan in order to practice Tae Kwon Do, eventually forming their own school.  It became an Olympic event in 2000.  In a nut shell, it’s why I had never heard of Tang Soo Do before I started practicing it in 2006.

But back to history: Tae Kwon Do was so highly favored by the government that in 1965, the school received a countermand ordering the dissolution of the Korean Soo Bahk Do Association.  Hwang Kee started legal proceedings against the Korean government in order to protect the school.  He won the lawsuit.  The government took it to the supreme court.  In 1966, he won again and forever secured the organization’s existence.

Since then, despite continuing political unrest, the art has continued to spread.  There are federation instructors in Malaysia, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Greece, Italy, the UK and the USA.  There are unofficial gyms (i.e. lead by instructors not officially ‘in the club’) all over the world.

Hwang Kee died in 2002 and his son took over the organization.  They are still training instructors, still competing internationally, and still hoarding knowledge, as evidence by the introduction of the book.  The art itself has roots in Japanese, Chinese, and strangely enough, Korean martial arts.  I feel overwhelmed by the complexities of its history, and it’s only 67 years old.

So perhaps it’s fitting that after having read this book I have only more questions, only more research to do, only more wonder about the connections between this art and the more ancient ones it’s based on.  After all, the purpose of practicing the art is to learn, not to know.  I’ve got a lot of learning to do.

Fail. Fail again. Fail better. - Samuel Beckett

That has long been one of my favorite quotes and I use it today to remind myself that as many great goals as I have there are far more flaws to contend with in my efforts to achieve those.  And that's ok.  Acceptance, self love, and not taking myself so damned seriously have been the themes in my life for the past few years.  So forget why I failed and let's move on to the the fail again part.

My failing goal for the year?  A simple reboot of the goal I failed at last year: to read a book a month.  That's my self-set goal for the 2013 Outdo Yourself Challenge.  There are a whole lot of fiction books on my reading list but there's a whole lot of non-fiction on there as well.  Specifically, there's a whole lot of non-fiction on the topic of my main hobby: Tang Soo Do.

One of the masters has taken it upon himself to improve the knowledge base of our school by making sure all the black belts have at least a basic understanding of the history of our craft, where it came from, how the knowledge was passed down (or, more accurately, snuck down) and the science behind the physical movements we do.  Being both a big fan of history and a person with a big reading goal for the year this assignment is right up my alley.

And so it is that my first read for the year will be Grandmaster Hwang Kee's The History of Moo Duk Kwan.  It's the first in a long list of books I need to read to enhance my understanding of the martial art I practice.  I'm reading it first this year because it's entirely too basic of a text for me to have not read already and every time I go to class I have a slight pang of guilt over it.  Well no more!

As always, I will be posting my reviews on here and including all the helpful links you might need to learn more about the book and get your own copy if you so choose.  The first helpful link is to The Book Vixen's site so you can sign up for your own reading challenge.  The "Outdo Yourself" category is just one of many so browse around and figure out which one works best for you.  Or don't set any goals at all and just simply read... just like I'm going to right now.