Book Review: "The Children of Hurin" by JRR Tolkien

I may earn the wrath of my peers for saying this, but I'm not particularly fond of "The Lord of the Rings". By which I mean Tolkien's novels, because I do enjoy the Peter Jackson films despite their numerous flaws. But I read Tolkien's original trilogy once and never felt any compulsion to repeat the experience.

I'll give the man credit where it's due: yes, in many ways "The Lord of the Rings" is the seminal fantasy text. It's also extremely long-winded, remarkably obsessed with minutiae (is there any particular reason I need to know the entire genealogy of a tertiary character?), it's horrendously gender-imbalanced even for a pre-feminist work, it features massive tangents completely unrelated to the main thrust of the narrative (to this day, I have yet to be convinced that the Tom Bombadil section is of any relevance at all), and it commits dramatic self-sabotage at practically every turn. This was something Peter Jackson actually improved on: it's much more climactic to see Boromir's last stand against the Uruk-Hai, rather than be told about it after the fact.

So, all in all, I prefer Peter Jackson's interpretation of the text to the text itself. Granted, said interpretation has its own flaws:

And I'm not even going to talk about the subtext:



But in terms of plot, dialogue, pacing, characterization and so on, Jackson's contributions only elevate the source material.

And yet, paradoxically, I find that I'm quite partial to "The Silmarillion", a pseudo-Biblical novel pieced together by Christopher Tolkien after his father's death. "The Silmarillion" details the creation of Middle-Earth and the formative events which take place in the pre-history of "Lord of the Rings". Oddly enough, the fact that "The Silmarillion" is a patchwork text sewn together from the fragments of Tolkien's notes seems to make it more readable than Tolkien's would-be masterpiece itself. Whereas "The Lord of the Rings" is frighteningly overextended as a quest narrative, the structural scope of "The Silmarillion" allows for simultaneous exploring of the macro (cosmic wars between good and evil) and micro (the tragic tale of Turin Turambar) levels. That may in fact be what makes "The Silmarillion" so much more engaging to me than its predecessor - the fact that it's able to tell all these different stories without feeling like it's straying from the one it's supposed to be telling (well, that and the fact that unlike Sauron in "The Lord of the Rings", Morgoth is an active antagonist who actually participates in the story, and that goes a long way).

This is all a very long pre-amble to what I'm actually reviewing, "The Children of Hurin". It's basically the complete version of a fragment originally presented in "The Silmarillion", expanding one of the sub-stories - the tale of Turin Turambar, a tragic hero in the ancient Greek tradition. Tolkien the younger has done an excellent job of combining the text originally featured in "The Silmarillion" with expanded material both drawn from Tolkien's unfinished notes and from his own imagination as well: the result is a narrative that reads well and presents a consistent, enjoyable fantasy tale that stands on its own, something accessible to people who enjoyed the movies but find the heavy, laborous reading of the original novel too daunting - "The Children of Hurin" offers an alternative glimpse at Middle-Earth's pre-narrative history. Not just for Tolkienites!

Book Review: "Empress" by Shan Sa

I really should've liked this one a bit more than I did.

"Empress" is a quasi-fictional autobiography in which the author, Shan Sa, attempts to reconstruct the life story of Wu Zetian, the only woman ever to rule China as emperor. Now, Wu is a controversial figure: on the one hand, she was - by most accounts - a scheming, manipulative bitch who could be quite brutal when she needed to be, and for a very long time she was held up as an example of how women can't handle power (because, as America has proven so nicely over the last eight years, men always do a bang-up job in the driver's seat). But on the other hand, the fact that she managed to achieve the impossible, especially in a culture so strongly oriented around tradition, is noteworthy, and there's a case to be made that her more extreme actions were a product of (and response to) her environment.

We'll never know if that's true of the real Wu or not, but I imagine that'd be a good starting point for a sympathetic depiction. Unfortunately, Shan Sa's version of Wu isn't very sympathetic. In fact, it's a bit difficult to know where Sa stands with regards to Wu at all because, having adopted Wu's identity (the novel is written in first-person), what Sa actually gives us is a thoroughly detached narrative, obsessed with lists and names and ice-cold, almost robotic categorization. She never really gets into Wu's head, her thoughts and feelings; Wu herself is almost a bystander in her own story.

Now, I'll grant that it's a very tricky thing to fictionalize a real person's biography to the extent that you presume to speak with their voice. But if you take that plunge, you might as well give your readers some sort of internal access, rather than spout a string of encyclopedic entries one could find on Wikipedia with much less effort. Who was Wu Zetian? What motivated her to do the things she did? How did she feel at those key moments in her life that defined her in the history books? Sa offers us no answers... in fact, Sa doesn't even ask the questions. The whole novel's written a step removed from the actual action (towards the end, Sa hints that Wu is telling us this story from beyond the grave, which drains what little dramatic impact might yet have survived the endless litany of specific details). As a story, "Empress" failed to engage me, because it's not actually about Wu Zetian at all. It's about the world Wu lived in, and while I'm sure that's of interest to a great many readers, it's not the story I could reasonably expect to find from a novel titled "Empress" that claims to tell Wu's tale.

Diana's Adventures in TV Land: Opening Night

The article is way overdue: my time's being eaten up by the "Command and Conquer" series, which I recently discovered. More on that once I've completed the Tiberium trilogy...

Anyway, slight change of plans: I want to talk about first impressions today. Four new shows caught my attention when the fall season started: "Reaper", "Chuck", "Pushing Daisies" and "Bionic Woman". Originally, I was going to hold off evaluating them until mid-season, but after watching a few episodes of each, a pattern started to reveal itself and I want to explore that.

In a way, the big wave of premieres can be daunting if you're like me, on the lookout for entertaining material but unwilling to totally submerge yourself in crap to find it. But looking back, I find that most of the series I've enjoyed in recent years - "Heroes", "Veronica Mars", "Joan of Arcadia", "Rome", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", etc. - started off with strong pilots and largely maintained that level of quality, at least for the first season. Conversely, series like "Supernatural", which vacillates from "eh" to "good" on a weekly basis but never quite reaches "great", had a thoroughly above-average series premiere. It's not so much that a pilot is the grand summation of everything the series will ever be... you have to make allowances that things will improve ("Buffy") or go completely downhill ("Lost"). But it's probably a fair indicator of a series' potential, of what it can and can't do.

With that in mind, let's turn to our first entry, Bionic Woman. I'll confess that my expectations for this one weren't high to begin with: with all due respect to Michelle Ryan, I've never seen her as lead material. She's a very limited actress who can't emote well and has no dramatic range to speak of, and that's a huge problem with character-centric series - "Heroes" could afford to drop the ball with Niki because there were plenty of other protagonists who were much more interesting, but "Bionic Woman" has to depict Jaime Sommers in a way that makes us want to learn more about her. I'm not feeling that way.

And the same can be said for the rest of the cast, none of whom are even marginally appealing: Jaime's sister is a brat, her boyfriend's dull as paste (and quickly becomes irrelevant in the overall scheme of things), the Typically Shadowy Figures of Authority are... well, typical shadowy figures of authority, and while Sarah Corvis has the potential to serve as an interesting antagonist, it's way too early to pull the "mirror rival" card - you're supposed to use that relationship to learn more about the protagonist, but Jaime's a piece of mechanical cardboard. And that, for me, is what kills my interest: I'm willing to wade through perfectly formulaic plots and premises if the characters stand out enough to overwhelm that tedium. "Bionic Woman" offers no such thing, so it's dropped.

Now, this is where Chuck got it partially right: the title character is an endearing computer nerd, and each of the supporting characters has at least one quality that makes them instantly likeable (well, except for Morgan). The issue I had with "Chuck", aside from the pattern I've noticed (which I promise we'll get to in a bit) isn't so much that I wasn't interested in the characters, it's that I wasn't interested enough. I mean, to be fair, the three episodes I saw had plenty of amusing moments, so the comedic aspect of the series was successful, but... I don't know. Even as I decided to stop watching it, I didn't actively dislike it - I still don't. Maybe it's the premise I have a problem with: as unique abilities go, having an NSA/CIA database in your head which causes you to spout secret facts like a covert op with Tourette's doesn't feel... spectacular enough, I suppose.

Oddly enough, if Reaper didn't have that aspect of flashy spectacle, it'd probably be an exact duplicate of "Chuck" in terms of format and cast configuration (more on that pattern I'll be talking about shortly). Broadly speaking, it's the same character - wage-slave loser with a touch of wit suddenly finding himself empowered and stuck with a new set of responsibilities, through no fault or initiative of his own. You have the supportive but ignorant family, the snarky mentor figure (Ray Wise vs. Adam Baldwin = scorched earth all around), the obnoxious best friend, the unattainable love interest, the intolerable manager... I think the only real difference is that the premise comes off a touch better here than in "Chuck" (and it's saying something that I find soul-selling and Satanic bounty hunters more plausible than having a computer stuck in a guy's brain), although the trade-off is that, with "Reaper", the characters lean a bit more towards stock qualities than having that individual charm Zachary Levi and his co-stars possess. To be totally honest, it's kind of a problem when the only character I genuinely like is Ray Wise's weirdly affectionate version of the Devil; my fondness for "Brimstone" also does "Reaper" no favors as far as comparisons go.

Which brings us to Pushing Daisies, the only new show I'm still watching. As I told my pal Tink the other day, "Pushing Daisies" is like having late-era Tim Burton throw up on my TV: bright colors, quirky weirdness a-plenty, impromptu musical numbers, and the kind of urban fantasy style straight out of "Edward Scissorhands" (minus the Gothic imagery). Of all the new shows, "Pushing Daisies" made the most positive impression on me, mainly because it's not like anything that's currently on TBV. Comparisons have been made to "Wonderfalls", Bryan Fuller's previous project, but I think "Pushing Daisies" is superior to its predecessor by virtue of having all the elements necessary for a successful run - in fact, one could say it combines the individual qualities each of the aforementioned shows has, possessing all their strengths and none of their weaknesses. The characters are instantly loveable (Lee Pace as Ned just breaks my heart on a regular basis, but Chi McBride's bitchy rendition of Emerson is just as captivating), the writing is quick and witty, the general weirdness is just obvious enough to get our attention without completely overwhelming the story, and if it seems to lack a general direction... well, that's the sort of thing I don't mind waiting for, especially since the show's doing everything else right.

And now, let's move on to the pattern. Is it me, or do all these series revolve around the premise of a completely ordinary person granted some wildly outrageous superpower, through no fault of his or her own, which ends up redefining their life? There's a definite post-"Heroes" trend here, IMO. Of course, we can also ask whether these entries constitute homages to the superhero genre; it's pretty much the same formula as Spider-Man's accidental genesis, or the mutant scenario where you hit puberty and become a freak of nature. It's interesting to analyze what lies behind the trend: there's an implicit suggestion that when accidents elevate people beyond the level of humanity, they're going to do good deeds with it. They'll become heroes, and they'll take that "great power, great responsibility" equation seriously, and while they may be tempted to misuse their abilities, they never will. It's a comforting notion, perhaps aimed at re-establishing the image of the Self-Sacrificing Hero (which, in the last decade or so, took a bit of a step back in favor of the Anti-Hero).

But as with any trend, the great danger is collision between all the individual series following the guidelines: with the exception of "Pushing Daisies", which takes Ned's unique talent in an entirely different light, pretty much all the shows are typical and derivative of each other. The protagonists of "Chuck" and "Reaper" are virtually identical in terms of their primary characteristics; the angle skews towards "Monster/Threat of the Week" more often than not; antagonists are cookie-cutter figures with no real depth of their own. In this situation, it comes down to charisma: which actor can keep me watching the show in spite of its unoriginality? More importantly, is it the right actor? Like I said, Ray Wise is fabulous as the Devil - but he doesn't score nearly enough screen time to justify watching "Reaper" for his scenes.

An underwhelming season for debuts, then; of course, as I said, there's still plenty of room for improvement, and it's altogether likely that one of the them (well, probably not "Bionic Woman") will reel me back in. Until then, "Pushing Daisies" joins "Dexter", "Supernatural", "Heroes" and "Weeds" on my list of must-see TV.

Kazekage can takes no more!

To which I say: here, here.

Movie Mini-Review: Latter Days

This was originally going to be a full-length review, but I don't have anything interesting to say about "Latter Days": it's a hokey, over-the-top flick that falls way short of fulfilling any romantic aspirations; like "Brokeback Mountain", it's so fixated on sex that when we, as viewers, are asked to believe that the lead characters have fallen in love, my first response is "Whoa, when did that happen?" Pretty much "meh" all around, IMO.

Movie Review: Luster

Trying to reassume some semblance of normal posting again... let's hope it works. :)

My movie club tends to designate certain months as Theme Months - we did Horror in June, and Psychodrama in January. October is Gay Cinema Month: over the next four Saturdays, we'll be getting together to watch gay-themed films from all genres. Technically, we were supposed to start this Saturday, but Daniella's going abroad so we bumped it up a bit.

This week's entry was a charming indie film called "Luster". Like most gay films, it's primarily centered around a mixed group of friends in an urban setting; I'm not sure why that format is such a solid mainstay of the genre, though I guess it's to do with an inherent, implicit social agenda. The gay character starts off with a pre-existing social network that already accepts him or her, so being gay - that dreaded categorization which usually overshadows all other character traits - isn't really the issue at hand.

"Luster" actually reminded me quite a bit of "Heights", in the sense that my appreciation of both films is largely due to their proper use of the slice-of-life drama. As in "Heights", there aren't any over-the-top dramatic situations here, no outrageous moments that strain our suspension of disbelief. It's about ordinary people going about their ordinary lives, and if some of them (Billy) are much more fucked-up than we might initially expect, it's still within the bounds of normalcy. As with the best slice-of-life tales, the characters make the story.

That said, what makes this film particularly interesting is that the plot takes its cues from the way the characters define themselves. Jackson, our protagonist, is a blue-haired twenty-something aspiring poet who kills time in a record store that only sells albums by bands no one has ever heard of. Jackson, and his friends, are classic "alternative" archetypes (in other words, virulently opposed to the mainstream), and as a result the storyline makes a point of twisting around mainstream plot conventions. A character commits suicide for reasons that are never fully explored, even though the rules of drama necessitate closure (despite the fact that, in reality, suicide doesn't always make sense). Derek's infatuation with Jackson is this huge, looming cliche - love at first sight, opposites attract, constance and patience bring reciprocation, etc. - but the cliche gets cut off at the knees before it can fully play itself out.

"Luster" demonstrates its desire to be different (or, at the very least, to be perceived differently) through every aspect of the movie: visually, the film has a very unpolished look, decidedly unglamourous, with fresh-faced actors who straddle the line between awkward and genuine. Narratively, character development is a touch erratic - we're probably not supposed to understand Jed's motives, but he has such a profound impact on the people around him that it seems a bit odd we never get into his head. Then again, if we are to see "Luster" as a conscious rebellion against the Hollywood formula, I assume the point is to break that tradition of "endings" in film - whether happy or sad, practically the entire cinematic medium is geared towards the notion that when the credits roll, you can safely walk away with "The End" of the story. But it's unclear whether Jackson's fate gives us closure: things just seem to go on after the plot climaxes, and while our protagonist does get to make a final choice, it's pretty obviously not the choice he would have made under different circumstances. It's a very ambivalent and ambiguous conclusion, and yet it's so appropriate to the story that I can't see it ending any other way.

All in all, I enjoyed "Luster" as a sort of momentary departure from the more tired trends of mainstream film - you don't have to know the conventions to get the point, but if you do, it makes for a much more interesting viewing experience.

Next week's film is "Latter Days", review (probably) to follow.

I lost 150 pounds!

My last seminar paper for this semester has been handed in. A Galactus-sized weight has been lifted from my head. :)

And just in time for the new TV season! Yay! :D