Happy Endings and Personal Taste
Sep. 9th, 2009 11:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouseThe day before we left for LaCrosse, our friends the Jacksons in Colorado sent us a surprise package of books. There was much awesome to be found, including a Shonen Jump magazine that included a reprint of the first HIRAKU NO GO, as well as collected volumes 2 and 5. I read the reprint and 2 right away, and packed volume 5 for the road. They also sent along some DRAGONBALL Z or maybe Yu Gi Oh! and several other manga titles, which I perused but ultimately did not get super-excited over.
Meanwhile, Mason got his first taste of CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS and was instantly hooked. Who, after all, can resist the charms of Professor Pee-Pee Poopypants? Not I, and certainly not a six year old boy.
Shawn, meanwhile, fell in love with a magazine called “Mental Floss” which is full of fun bits of geeky information -- including a huge article about toilet paper. We’re considering buying her a subscription.
Do we have awesome friends or what?
The trip to LaCrosse is always a lot of fun, and this time we drove down in a misty fog that hung on as far down as Wabasha, and well past 11:00 am. After our usual hellos and such we headed off to the local library to see if they had more CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS or any of the Goosebumps series we’d never seen before. My dad came along as the local public library card holder (actually it was my mom’s), but also because libraries and company are a fine thing. By chance, for me, they also had HIRAKU NO GO volumes 3 and 4, so I had my dad check those out along with a zillion Goosebumps and three or four CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS.
The North Branch library in LaCrosse is the library of my youth. It’s changed significantly over the years. Ultimately, I think it’s a cozier, friendlier place now, but I was disappointed to see that mysteries now occupied the alcove space that once held my beloved science fiction/fantasy. I remembered with fondness many hours spent hidden in the back of the library, perched on the leaded glass window ledge reading Nebula and other short story collections and SF Novels like JESUS ON MARS.
Over the course of the weekend, Mason got out adventuring with grandma and grandpa to the water park at Copeland, and he and I hit Hixon forest (and found a trail that went all the way around the bluff... pant, pant), as well as spending quality time making mud pies on the banks of the LaCrosse river in the marsh trail near Myrick Park.
An excellent trip all and all. It was a fantastic last hurrah of summer for us all. I even napped a little.
I also had a chance to finish a book I checked out from the library called THE MAP OF MOMENTS by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon (Bantam, February 2009), which I rather enjoyed.
The story follows a history professor, Max, who returns to New Orleans for the funeral of an old lover, Gabrielle, who died in Hurricane Katrina. Gabrielle betrayed him with another man and Max left her and the city behind after that fateful day that he stumbled in on her and her new beau. Very quickly we learn that all in not what it seemed with Gabrielle. She was part of something dark and strange that’s tied to the very history of the city. In a drunken romantic impulse, Max allows himself to believe in a magic potion that a conjure-man, Ray, gives him along with a mystical “map of moments.” (Which is one of the coolest bits in the book).
As I mention, the setting for the novel is New Orleans six months after hurricane Katrina. I have no idea how accurate the descriptions are, but they’re certainly fascinating and heart-wrenching. Some parts of the world-building/magic system were also compellingly interesting – the map, a swamp demon, etc. Although I’d be curious what my friend Harry, a native of New Orleans, would say about it all, honestly. But, not knowing any better, I found both the setting and the world-building carried the story when the narrative stumbled.
Which it didn’t do often, although I’m not sure how I felt about the ending. I always tell my students at the Loft that for a story to feel complete, the hero/ine has to change. Max certainly does that over the course of the book. But, quite intentionally, the book ends in the same place as it began... and, well, it’s sort of depressing. My friend Eleanor says she won’t write a novel or a story that doesn’t end happily, because too much of life ends in complicated unhappiness. It’s this later place that MAP OF MOMENTS leaves the reader in the final chapter. I suppose it’s a rather grown-up place that should be satisfying in a complex and dark world, but, well, I was left wishing things had gone differently. I can’t say that’s a flaw, however. It’s a matter of taste.
In the end, I decided I was satisfied, even if I didn’t like the conclusion. So I give it a thumbs up.
By chance the universe is doing one of those synchronisity things, and the folks over at Wyrdsmiths are talking about the value of the "realistic" ending versus the "happy" ending, which is apparently a riff on something said by Alma Alexander over on SFNovelists. Check it out if you're so inclinded.
Meanwhile, Mason got his first taste of CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS and was instantly hooked. Who, after all, can resist the charms of Professor Pee-Pee Poopypants? Not I, and certainly not a six year old boy.
Shawn, meanwhile, fell in love with a magazine called “Mental Floss” which is full of fun bits of geeky information -- including a huge article about toilet paper. We’re considering buying her a subscription.
Do we have awesome friends or what?
The trip to LaCrosse is always a lot of fun, and this time we drove down in a misty fog that hung on as far down as Wabasha, and well past 11:00 am. After our usual hellos and such we headed off to the local library to see if they had more CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS or any of the Goosebumps series we’d never seen before. My dad came along as the local public library card holder (actually it was my mom’s), but also because libraries and company are a fine thing. By chance, for me, they also had HIRAKU NO GO volumes 3 and 4, so I had my dad check those out along with a zillion Goosebumps and three or four CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS.
The North Branch library in LaCrosse is the library of my youth. It’s changed significantly over the years. Ultimately, I think it’s a cozier, friendlier place now, but I was disappointed to see that mysteries now occupied the alcove space that once held my beloved science fiction/fantasy. I remembered with fondness many hours spent hidden in the back of the library, perched on the leaded glass window ledge reading Nebula and other short story collections and SF Novels like JESUS ON MARS.
Over the course of the weekend, Mason got out adventuring with grandma and grandpa to the water park at Copeland, and he and I hit Hixon forest (and found a trail that went all the way around the bluff... pant, pant), as well as spending quality time making mud pies on the banks of the LaCrosse river in the marsh trail near Myrick Park.
An excellent trip all and all. It was a fantastic last hurrah of summer for us all. I even napped a little.
I also had a chance to finish a book I checked out from the library called THE MAP OF MOMENTS by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon (Bantam, February 2009), which I rather enjoyed.
The story follows a history professor, Max, who returns to New Orleans for the funeral of an old lover, Gabrielle, who died in Hurricane Katrina. Gabrielle betrayed him with another man and Max left her and the city behind after that fateful day that he stumbled in on her and her new beau. Very quickly we learn that all in not what it seemed with Gabrielle. She was part of something dark and strange that’s tied to the very history of the city. In a drunken romantic impulse, Max allows himself to believe in a magic potion that a conjure-man, Ray, gives him along with a mystical “map of moments.” (Which is one of the coolest bits in the book).
As I mention, the setting for the novel is New Orleans six months after hurricane Katrina. I have no idea how accurate the descriptions are, but they’re certainly fascinating and heart-wrenching. Some parts of the world-building/magic system were also compellingly interesting – the map, a swamp demon, etc. Although I’d be curious what my friend Harry, a native of New Orleans, would say about it all, honestly. But, not knowing any better, I found both the setting and the world-building carried the story when the narrative stumbled.
Which it didn’t do often, although I’m not sure how I felt about the ending. I always tell my students at the Loft that for a story to feel complete, the hero/ine has to change. Max certainly does that over the course of the book. But, quite intentionally, the book ends in the same place as it began... and, well, it’s sort of depressing. My friend Eleanor says she won’t write a novel or a story that doesn’t end happily, because too much of life ends in complicated unhappiness. It’s this later place that MAP OF MOMENTS leaves the reader in the final chapter. I suppose it’s a rather grown-up place that should be satisfying in a complex and dark world, but, well, I was left wishing things had gone differently. I can’t say that’s a flaw, however. It’s a matter of taste.
In the end, I decided I was satisfied, even if I didn’t like the conclusion. So I give it a thumbs up.
By chance the universe is doing one of those synchronisity things, and the folks over at Wyrdsmiths are talking about the value of the "realistic" ending versus the "happy" ending, which is apparently a riff on something said by Alma Alexander over on SFNovelists. Check it out if you're so inclinded.
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-09 05:43 pm (UTC)Speaking as a DB fanboy, there is almost no similarity.
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Date: 2009-09-10 09:13 am (UTC)Realistic ending vs the happy one: I'm just having this out with SIXSMITHS. The story we pitched had a neat and tidy ending, but the publisher felt it wasn't appropriate, so Marc and I have gone for something a bit more realistic.
The irony is that this is one of the few times I've ever plotted a happy ending.
-- JF