(Written by Diana Wynne Jones.) Life isn't fair. Sophie certainly knows the truth in that statement. After all, she's eldest of three sisters in her family, and, as simply everyone knows, the eldest never succeeds in life. Sure enough, when her father dies, her sisters get placed into good jobs that put them in the way of happy lives, while Sophie is stuck making hats in the back of her family's hat shop. To top it all off, the Witch of the Waste shows up in the shop one day and turns Sophie into an old woman! Sophie simply can't stay in her old life looking like an old woman. She goes to seek her fortune, and happens to stumble across the moving castle that belongs to the wicked Wizard Howl. It is said that no young woman is safe with Howl, who either collects their souls or eats their hearts (it depends on who is telling the story). But then, that isn't a problem for Sophie - she isn't a young woman any longer.
I absolutely love this book! The characters, dialogue, narration, and imagination are just delightful. Best of all, the authoress has managed to write a hopeful book in which the heroine and especially the hero are flawed and almost nothing is as it seems. I could detail the many ways in which things are not as they seem, but that would take a long time and give away much of the book. Instead, I'll focus a bit on the book's personality.
Howl's Moving Castle naturally takes on the personality of Sophie. After all, she is the main character, and books often display the same characteristics as their main characters. With Sophie, what you see is what you get. She is an unpretentious determined young lady who puts her mind to whatever task she has at hand, whether she knows exactly where she's going or not. For example, when the Wicked Witch of the Waste turns her into an old woman, Sophie makes up her mind to leave and does so. However, she likes to resort to secrecy and even tricks now and again when honesty fails.
This trait, the trait of resorting to secrecy and tricks when honesty fails, is the predominant trait in Howl's Moving Castle. In other words, deceptive appearances abound. I won't detail all of them here, but there is more than one red herring dragged across the trail throughout the course of the book. Honesty is used by the authoress until it is no longer useful, and then the secrecy and tricks come into play. The real challenge for the reader is the ability to discern which are the honest parts and which are the tricks. The two are mixed together rather liberally, and are only really separated at the end.
My Rating: OK (violence, scary ideas)
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Welcome Back to Middle Earth! We Hope You Enjoy Your Stay...
A picture of Thorin is out on theonering.net! Plus, IMDb has stills from the movie! (For those of you who have been on a trip to Mars and only just returned, a two-part version of The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien's prelude to Lord of the Rings, is coming out in 2012 and 2013.)
Other pictures have come out, but the one of Richard Armitage (North & South, and that dreadful Robin Hood show) as Thorin is the one I have really looked foward to. My first reaction was a grimace. Richard Armitage is a very good-looking man, and as Thorin he looks rather, well, dwarvish. But I soon recovered and decided he looks just fine. After all, he still has his piercing eyes. And I'm thrilled that Martin Freeman (Sherlock) is playing Bilbo Baggins. He doesn't look as much like Ian Holm as I would wish, but he'll make a great Bilbo.
To expand from the pictures to the movie, I'm really excited that this project is finally becoming a reality. It took forever after ROTK came out (2003!), but real progress is being made. All I can say is: They'd better stick to the story. Some of the ideas that were apparently bandied about during the making of LOTR terrify me. (For example, sending Arwen to Helm's Deep to fight alongside Aragorn in TTT was apparently an option. Also, Aragorn was going to fight Sauron at the Black Gate in ROTK, but the Dark Lord was replaced by a troll in the final version of the film.) So, as long as they don't do anything too weird with the story (like insert a romance; romances add a lot to most stories, but there's no place for one here), I'm definitely seeing it in the theater and buying the (extended version?) DVD when it's released.
Other pictures have come out, but the one of Richard Armitage (North & South, and that dreadful Robin Hood show) as Thorin is the one I have really looked foward to. My first reaction was a grimace. Richard Armitage is a very good-looking man, and as Thorin he looks rather, well, dwarvish. But I soon recovered and decided he looks just fine. After all, he still has his piercing eyes. And I'm thrilled that Martin Freeman (Sherlock) is playing Bilbo Baggins. He doesn't look as much like Ian Holm as I would wish, but he'll make a great Bilbo.
To expand from the pictures to the movie, I'm really excited that this project is finally becoming a reality. It took forever after ROTK came out (2003!), but real progress is being made. All I can say is: They'd better stick to the story. Some of the ideas that were apparently bandied about during the making of LOTR terrify me. (For example, sending Arwen to Helm's Deep to fight alongside Aragorn in TTT was apparently an option. Also, Aragorn was going to fight Sauron at the Black Gate in ROTK, but the Dark Lord was replaced by a troll in the final version of the film.) So, as long as they don't do anything too weird with the story (like insert a romance; romances add a lot to most stories, but there's no place for one here), I'm definitely seeing it in the theater and buying the (extended version?) DVD when it's released.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Regarding This Present Darkness
(Written by Frank E. Peretti.) Satan is closing in on the little town of Ashton. His demons are lurking about, tempting people into doing horrible things. Now his lieutenant, Rafar, the Prince of Babylon, has been sent to carry out his evil plan. An angel named Captain Tal and his likewise angelic companions are preparing to do battle. But their strength can only be increased by human prayers - and there is precious little praying going on in Ashton. Only Hank Busche, a local pastor, and his wife Mary seem to be praying. Can Hank and the angels change the minds of the people in town? And what about that nosy newspaperman, Marshall Hogan? Will he be able to put his finger on what the town's most influential people are doing behind closed doors?
Hm. This book had great potential, but overly dramatic writing and shaky theology derailed it before it really got started. I mean, what could be cooler than angels and demons engaged in a spiritual battle, while human underdogs try to fight off an evil organization that is trying to take over the world? But the book just sort of fell on its face.
First, the writing in the beginning of the book nearly made me quit several times. Peretti attempted to throw the reader into the angels' urgent situation without any background. This might have worked, except he eliminated dialogue that would have been in there, in my opinion, had he not intended to keep the reader in the dark about the forces of light. (Forgive the pun.) Plus, I disliked the drama in the angels' dialogue. One of my favorite Chesterton quotes reads as follows: "Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly." Instead, Peretti's angels seem to be fully aware of the drama of their situation.
Fortunately, the writing got better as the book went on. Unfortunately, the theology did not.
On the surface, this book is great. It's essentially a warning against New Age religions, which seem to be benign but are really very dangerous. In Peretti's book, people's lives are destroyed or lost because of New Age influences, and fortune telling and other dangerous practices are similarly condemned.
Below the surface, however, the theology is shaky. Hank repeatedly drives demons out of afflicted people in the town, while other lay persons "rebuke" demons. I'm not sure if a lay person could ever drive out a demon from a possessed person. What I do know is that Catholic canon law states that exorcists must be priests appointed specifically for that task by their bishops. That sounds to me as if it is impossible or nearly impossible for a lay person to drive out demons. Additionally, I have read that exorcisms are processes that can take years of repitition before they are successful. I estimate that the longest it takes Hank to drive out a demon is about ten minutes.
Also, it bothered me that the only Catholics in the book were considered "superstitious." The Catholic items around their house were considered evidence for their superstitious minds. Now, to be fair, the main character who was in that scene was not really religious and therefore wouldn't understand pictures of Mary, etc. However, there was no correction of this mistake later in the book; as far as the reader knows, it's superstitious to have crucifixes and images of Mary about the house. That is not true or fair. Catholics have such images because they lift our minds to God, both because they are reminders and because they are beautiful. Superstition does not fit into the equation.
Plagued by a melodramatic writing style and theological difficulties, This Present Darkness takes a little while just to get off the ground. In the middle, the pace speeds up enough to be bearable, but the theological problems grow at the same time. Ultimately, I would not waste my time by reading this again, and I would not recommend it to anyone else either.
My Rating: MT (sexual references and content, violence, frightening ideas and images)
Hm. This book had great potential, but overly dramatic writing and shaky theology derailed it before it really got started. I mean, what could be cooler than angels and demons engaged in a spiritual battle, while human underdogs try to fight off an evil organization that is trying to take over the world? But the book just sort of fell on its face.
First, the writing in the beginning of the book nearly made me quit several times. Peretti attempted to throw the reader into the angels' urgent situation without any background. This might have worked, except he eliminated dialogue that would have been in there, in my opinion, had he not intended to keep the reader in the dark about the forces of light. (Forgive the pun.) Plus, I disliked the drama in the angels' dialogue. One of my favorite Chesterton quotes reads as follows: "Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly." Instead, Peretti's angels seem to be fully aware of the drama of their situation.
Fortunately, the writing got better as the book went on. Unfortunately, the theology did not.
On the surface, this book is great. It's essentially a warning against New Age religions, which seem to be benign but are really very dangerous. In Peretti's book, people's lives are destroyed or lost because of New Age influences, and fortune telling and other dangerous practices are similarly condemned.
Below the surface, however, the theology is shaky. Hank repeatedly drives demons out of afflicted people in the town, while other lay persons "rebuke" demons. I'm not sure if a lay person could ever drive out a demon from a possessed person. What I do know is that Catholic canon law states that exorcists must be priests appointed specifically for that task by their bishops. That sounds to me as if it is impossible or nearly impossible for a lay person to drive out demons. Additionally, I have read that exorcisms are processes that can take years of repitition before they are successful. I estimate that the longest it takes Hank to drive out a demon is about ten minutes.
Also, it bothered me that the only Catholics in the book were considered "superstitious." The Catholic items around their house were considered evidence for their superstitious minds. Now, to be fair, the main character who was in that scene was not really religious and therefore wouldn't understand pictures of Mary, etc. However, there was no correction of this mistake later in the book; as far as the reader knows, it's superstitious to have crucifixes and images of Mary about the house. That is not true or fair. Catholics have such images because they lift our minds to God, both because they are reminders and because they are beautiful. Superstition does not fit into the equation.
Plagued by a melodramatic writing style and theological difficulties, This Present Darkness takes a little while just to get off the ground. In the middle, the pace speeds up enough to be bearable, but the theological problems grow at the same time. Ultimately, I would not waste my time by reading this again, and I would not recommend it to anyone else either.
My Rating: MT (sexual references and content, violence, frightening ideas and images)
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Concerning Unplanned
(Written by Abby Johnson, with Cindy Lambert.) Abby Johnson grew up in a pro-life, Christian family. While in college, she was recruited to be a volunteer at a nearby Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood was there to help women, she was told, and as a worker there she would be making a difference in the lives of women who were in need of her help. Abortion was not the primary goal of Planned Parenthood; in fact, one of Planned Parenthood's primary goals was to reduce the number of abortions. Abby rose in the ranks and finally became director of a clinic. Then something happened to change her mind and her heart.
In my humble experience and opinion, there are only three types of people in favor of legalized abortion. 1) Evil people who are perfectly aware that abortion is murder but think that some things are more important than the lives of unborn children. 2) People who have been deceived, either by others or by themselves, into thinking that abortion is just the "termination of a pregnancy" or the cleaning out of a "cluster of cells." 3) People who are ignorant and don't know/care much about abortion either way. Abby Johnson's story shows that, at least in Texas, many of the people working in Planned Parenthood clinics fall into the second category. They were deceived by others at the start, and have been deceiving themselves ever since.
This is a good lesson that should be taken to heart by pro-lifers. It's easy to hate on people involved in something as appalling as abortion. But sometimes people who are aligned with something evil are not really evil themselves; as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Plus, the pro-life movement is not just about the sanctity of life; it is about the dignity of every person, no matter how small. People who work for abortion clinics deserve to be treated with dignity because they are human persons as well.
I don't really want to say too much more because I think the impacts of stories like this one are greater when fewer details are known going into the stories. The only other thing I want to say is that this book is very fair and even-handed. Abby genuinely liked/likes pro-abortion people she worked for or with. This is not a cathartic rant about the evils of the clinic and those who participated in abortions; this is a simple story about a young woman discovering the truth.
Note: Abby's website can be found at abbyjohnson.org.
My Rating: T (mentions of abortions, thematic elements; no graphic descriptions)
In my humble experience and opinion, there are only three types of people in favor of legalized abortion. 1) Evil people who are perfectly aware that abortion is murder but think that some things are more important than the lives of unborn children. 2) People who have been deceived, either by others or by themselves, into thinking that abortion is just the "termination of a pregnancy" or the cleaning out of a "cluster of cells." 3) People who are ignorant and don't know/care much about abortion either way. Abby Johnson's story shows that, at least in Texas, many of the people working in Planned Parenthood clinics fall into the second category. They were deceived by others at the start, and have been deceiving themselves ever since.
This is a good lesson that should be taken to heart by pro-lifers. It's easy to hate on people involved in something as appalling as abortion. But sometimes people who are aligned with something evil are not really evil themselves; as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Plus, the pro-life movement is not just about the sanctity of life; it is about the dignity of every person, no matter how small. People who work for abortion clinics deserve to be treated with dignity because they are human persons as well.
I don't really want to say too much more because I think the impacts of stories like this one are greater when fewer details are known going into the stories. The only other thing I want to say is that this book is very fair and even-handed. Abby genuinely liked/likes pro-abortion people she worked for or with. This is not a cathartic rant about the evils of the clinic and those who participated in abortions; this is a simple story about a young woman discovering the truth.
Note: Abby's website can be found at abbyjohnson.org.
My Rating: T (mentions of abortions, thematic elements; no graphic descriptions)
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