Annoy a Politician: Read a Banned Book Today!

Posted on September 25, 2017 by A. Elizabeth West

Holy crap, I’ve been so busy looking for work and doing things on a project I forgot all about Banned Books Week! I’ve been avoiding Twitter this past weekend, or I would have noticed before now.

From the American Library Association’s webpage:

Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it highlights the value of free and open access to information. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers — in shared support of the freedom to seek and express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular. (http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks)

This year, in light of recent attacks on free speech by people who should fecking know better, I will highlight books that are banned by governments. I’m confining it to books I’ve actually read. Let’s begin.

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Remind you of anybody?

Image: exampapersplus.co.uk

Orwell finished his book in 1943 and because of its criticism of the USSR and its alliance with Britain in WWII, he had to wait until 1945 before he found a publisher. Of course the USSR promptly banned it.

North Korea also banned the book, where it remains forbidden. The novel originally contained a preface that admonished the British government for suppressing criticism of the USSR. The United Arab Emirates banned it in 2002 because of the depiction of anthropomorphized pigs, considered an unclean animal in both Islam and Judaism.

Read this book and piss off Kim Jong-un!

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

This 1991 novel, made into a rather entertaining film starring Welsh actor Christian Bale and a 2013 musical (no, really), details the inner life of investment banker Patrick Bateman, who may or may not also be a serial murderer. It’s also a darkly hilarious critique of trendy ‘80s Wall Street elites and their superficial lives.

Chief complaints against the book have concerned the intense graphic violence Patrick (dreams of? Commits?) and the Australian state of Queensland banned its sale. Now you can get it in libraries there, but only if you’re over 18. Elsewhere in Australia, you can’t buy it unless you’re 18.

Everybody remembers what song was playing in this scene, right?

reactiongifs.com

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

People slammed the hell out of Steinbeck’s book as socialist propaganda when it was released in 1939, but that didn’t stop it from winning both a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. You might have read the story of the Joad family, who travel from Oklahoma to California during the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression in search of a new life, in high school. The book was banned in parts of the U.S., including California, where the Associated Farmers of California organization decried its portrayal of the way farmers treated the migrant workers (hint: it wasn’t great).

Oh yeah, and it might have been partially because of this scene at the end, where Rose-of-Sharon, who has recently given birth to a stillborn child, offers her breast to a starving man.

A poignant scene of survival, but BEWBS.
Rosasharn: Kelly Kaduce
in Minnesota Opera – The Grapes of Wrath
Composer: Ricky Ian Gordon
Conductor: Grant Gershon
Lyrics/Libretto: Mchael Korie
Director: Eric Simonson

Image: michaelkorie.com

Sophie’s Choice by William Styron

Banned in Lebanon for a positive depiction of Jews, according to Wikipedia, this 1979 novel about the relationships between several people living in a boarding house in Brooklyn absolutely broke me. If you’ve seen the film starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Peter MacNichol, you know what Sophie’s choice was.

I can’t even.

Image: listal.com

It was also banned in South Africa and in Poland for views on Polish anti-Semitism. Controversies around this novel also included sexual material and the novelist’s decision to make his Holocaust survivor character a Polish Catholic. It came out during a time when people were just starting to really discuss the Holocaust, and Styron pointing out that it wasn’t only Jews who suffered under Hitler’s maniacal regime engendered fierce discussion of what some people saw as revisionist views.

Regardless, it’s a hell of a good read.

———–

More banned books I’ve enjoyed include:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury – Inspired by the McCarthy era, Bradbury’s 1953 dystopian future in which the protagonist is a fireman whose job is not to put out fires but to start them….with forbidden books the fuel.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger – I read this 1951 novel right before it was yanked from my school because it has the F word in it. We didn’t read it in class but my English teacher loaned me a copy because she knew I would get it. Bless you, Mrs. Burns. It’s become one of my favorite books.

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling – Well of course I enjoyed this story of a boy wizard fighting the most fearsome and fascist wizard of his time. But you knew that.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston – I didn’t read Hurston’s 1937 novel until I was in grad school and took a class in African-American literature, but DAMN, this is a good book. It’s about how black women are defined in their marital relationships. Janie is a strong woman and her yearning for a mutually giving relationship is very relatable. I really enjoyed her story.

Hit up Amazon or the library and read a banned book this week!

I Saw the New IT Film and I Bloody Hated It

Posted on September 13, 2017 by A. Elizabeth West

WARNING!!! THIS POST CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE 2017 ADAPTATION OF STEPHEN KING’S IT.

Today, I took advantage of an Alamo Drafthouse $6 ticket price special for shows before 2 p.m. and I chose IT. Well, the chicken strips were good, anyway.

Everyone knows I’m a huge Stephen King fan, and I had high hopes for this film. I really did. Special effects have grown leaps and bounds thanks to CGI since the first TV adaptation. And they really nailed the look of Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård). That made me think it might be worth seeing.

Silver suit–check. Orange pompoms–check. Malevolent smile–check.

Image: youtube.com

Alas, it was not to be. Instead, I got an overblown, shallow version with myriad jump-scares that didn’t even make me jump. Not once. In short, it was shit.

Stephen King’s novel is a behemoth at 1,138 pages. There is no way you could do it all in one film, and this is the first of two. The filmmakers wisely chose to put the kids in the first film and save the grownups for Chapter Two.

The children’s section of the book is set in the 1950s. Characters have 1950s names – Richie, Beverly, Bill, Stan, and Betty. Obviously when these kids grow up, they’re adults in the 1980s.

The kids’ period has been updated to the 1980s. Kids then had names like Matt, Jennifer, Shelley, Daniel, Becky, and Kenny. Of course, millennials wouldn’t know that, but anyone old enough to have read the book when it came out absolutely will notice. Though not a huge problem, it lends a jarring note to the film’s atmosphere.

I blew that off and kept watching. Didn’t take long before I started to squirm in my seat. It physically hurt to watch them gut the story. I recognized moments from the book as they began, and then they shot off track into unknown and ridiculous territory.

The deviations robbed many of the story’s most powerful moments of their punch and skimmed the surface of the characters. Sloppy writing and contrived dialogue (there is TONS of great dialogue in the book; they should have used it) only made it worse.

In the novel, each kid has a separate encounter with It before they are drawn into the Losers Club. These scenes establish not only the kids’ characters but the monster’s (it’s a shape-shifter, and clever). Only Beverly, Bill, Stan, and Eddie get to do this. We lose Mike’s giant bird, and Richie’s narrow escape from the big plastic Paul Bunyan statue. Paul appeared in the background of a scene and I got super excited when I saw him; then he vanished for the rest of the film.

HI RICHIE! Wait–what? I only get a cameo? Well bust my buttons and call my agent!

Image: northumberlandnews.com

The dead boys at the Derry Standpipe who chase a horrified Stan Uris (Wyatt Oleff) become instead a misshapen painting in his rabbi father’s office. It’s inspired by something that scared the film’s director; it had nothing to do with the book, mind you. Like most of the film, actually.

Other choice missteps:

Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs) is still a farm kid, but now an orphan. They barely spend any time on him before he joins the Losers Club. The adult story hinges on Mike, and they should have plumbed his character more here.

George Denbrough dies in the same way at the beginning of the film–Pennywise tears his arm off. Pretty awful, right? A kid getting his wing ripped completely off! He screams, he bleeds–and then the clown yanks him down into the storm drain and eats him. Not only is this anti-climactic (yes, really), now big brother Bill’s (Jaeden Lieberher) motivation changes from white-hot revenge to the anemic “Georgie isn’t dead; he’s only missing. We have to find him.”

Ben Hanscomb (Jeremy Ray Taylor) is still fat, but he looks a good two years younger than he should. Ben was supposed to be a BIG fat kid, not a teeny fat kid. His tormentor, bully Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton) also looks far too young and isn’t really all that menacing, though Hamilton does his best. Taylor’s performance is good, but he gets eclipsed by Richie.

Patrick Hockstetter (Owen Teague), a shudderingly creepy character in the book, was barely in the film and should have been left out entirely if they weren’t going to do anything with him.

Not far in, I found myself asking, “Where the hell is little asthmatic Eddie Kaspbrak’s (Jack Dylan Grazer) aspirator?” A huge character tag for this hypochondriac kid, it pops up halfway through as though the writers forgot about it. We also get no sense of the power his fearful mother Sonia (Molly Atkinson) holds over him; it’s merely hinted at, and Atkinson’s part is also wasted.

The abandoned house on Neibolt Street made it into the film, but they bloated it into a giant burned-out haunted looking monstrosity, instead of the ordinary facade it was in the book. No werewolf because no 1950s; just Eddie’s leper, who starts out cool but devolves into another overdone effect.

A well in the house also becomes the portal to It’s lair, instead of the sewers in the Barrens. The Barrens themselves are merely backdrop here; they’re mentioned often and then discarded.

Why no, Myrtle, that house couldn’t possibly be haunted.

Image: mashable.com

The most egregious fail involves Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis). She’s the only girl in the Losers Club. Book Beverly is tough and yet vulnerable, with a father who beats her, a pattern she repeats as an adult by marrying an abusive man.

To my disgust, the film utterly sexualized Beverly. This is what Hollywood does to girls. It starts by bumping up the book’s popular kids’ rumors that Beverly is a slut and will sleep with anyone.

It permeates the relationship between and her father; instead of hitting her, he sniffs her hair lasciviously after she comes back from the drugstore with a box of tampons (not in the novel). Nobody outright says he’s molesting her, but you get the sense that he wants to. This was only hinted at in the book–King focused on the beating because Bev’s husband Tom Rogan is also a violent man.

The film subverts Beverly’s role as an actual member of the group in a scene where all the boys stare mesmerized at her body as she sunbathes, thus establishing her merely as a sex object. Although Ben has a mad crush on her, in the book they don’t really think of her as a “girl” per se. She swiftly becomes one of them. This moment ruined that burgeoning dynamic entirely.

The rumors surface again when Bev’s father literally tries to rape her (“I’ve been hearing things about you, Bevvie.”).

Worst of all, at the climax of the film, Beverly is objectified again when Pennywise kidnaps her and plunges her into a catatonic state with its deadlights, so this otherwise resourceful girl cannot save herself (also ruining the deadlights for Chapter Two). The boys have to save her.

Let me reiterate. THE BOYS HAVE TO SAVE HER. It’s the power of the penis! And how do they do that?

WITH A KISS. Yes, when Ben kisses her, Beverly comes out of her catatonic state. True love (not friendship, mind you!) wins the day!

At this point, I badly wanted to get out of the theater. I didn’t even wait for the credits to roll, something that as a soundtrack nerd, I usually anticipate. Nope, up and out as if Pennywise himself were after me.

A very few things were okay.

Finn Wolfhard, whom I love as Mike Wheeler in Netflix’s Stranger Things, plays Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier. Despite the film’s lack of character development, Richie has a very strong personality and Wolfhard does a great job with it. He’s the character I felt was closest to the book version.

Instead of being a whiz at building things (adult Ben is a famous architect), kid Ben gets to be a history nerd. It provided an easy way to shoehorn the history of Derry and the ubiquitous presence of the clown into the story. And they left his anonymous love haiku to Beverly, a sweet moment in the book, intact.

The Apocalyptic Rock Fight survived, though short and clumsy in execution.

The jump scares are run-of-the-mill standard horror fare. I’ve seen so many scary movies that directors have to try much harder if they want to actually frighten me. The film was infested with them–they took up time that could have been used for character development. Instead of slowly building tension with each child’s It encounters, the film tried to cram it down the viewer’s throat–Here! This is gross! Fear it! FEAR IT!

IT said “Boo!” over and over but failed to get me on every level. I do not recommend this film. I don’t know if I’ll even bother to see Chapter Two. If I do, I’ll most likely rent it from Redbox for a couple of bucks. But I won’t waste my popcorn money on it, or throw an Alamo experience down the drain again.

Just read the damn book.

Rating: D-minus

How to Get Past the Feeling That Your Writing Sucks

Posted on September 10, 2017 by A. Elizabeth West

I started re-reading IT and I’m in despair over how poor my writing is in comparison to Stephen King’s. I know I shouldn’t do that; IT was his thirteenth novel and Tunerville is only my fourth, so I don’t have as much practice as he did when he wrote it. But it’s so hard not to, especially now that I can read books and see the mechanics that went into writing them.

Mel Gibson allegedly said about directing, “I can’t watch movies anymore. I can see the strings.” Yeah, mentally ill or not, Mel kind of sucks, but this quote illustrates very well the phenomenon that happens when you begin to see how your craft actually works.

I feel exactly like that now–I can not only see the elements that make up the whole, I can understand WHY they don’t or do work. It’s akin to watching figure skating before and after I learned to skate.

Tara Lipinski, 1998 Winter Olympics. This is a combination triple loop jump followed by a double loop. Very difficult.

Image: popsugar.com

At the time Lipinski performed this program, her elements made no sense to me. I could not see a jump coming and had no idea what it even was until she did it and the commentator remarked on it. Watching a figure skating program then was an experience in surprises—stroke stroke BOOM! stroke stroke BOOM!

After fifteen years of skating myself, I can see the jump setup. I notice many more technical details that I didn’t before, such as whether the edge is good, shorted rotations, etc. I can even tell if someone jumping is likely to fall (sometimes they manage to save it when I think they can’t, so I’m not totally accurate). Even if I can’t perform all the elements Lipinski did, I recognize them. I can watch the jump and know with at least some certainty whether the judges will mark it as well executed.

Of course, you don’t have to be a skater to know these things. If you have a keen eye for observation and have been watching for many years, it’s possible to understand and analyze a sport with great accuracy. Many people who enjoy American football have never played it, but they can look at the formation during a game on TV and tell you exactly what’s about to happen.

Whoop, didn’t see THAT coming! #herpaderp

Image: buzzfeed.com

Doing an activity, however, provides you with a deeper understanding of its execution. That doesn’t make you an expert unless you’ve put in the hours and practice to become one. However, it does give you just enough information to be dangerous…

…to your self-esteem.

Writing is, in its nature, a solitary activity. You must enter the cavern of your mind and search for treasures there, then haul them out and attempt to convey them–and the quest for them–in a way that resonates with the reader, so he or she will buy your work.

But one man’s treasure is another’s trash. And a clumsy attempt at presentation will sell no merchandise. In your solitude, you can lose your objectivity regarding the quality of your presentation. When you run into a master’s-level piece, you may feel your work is just a sad little flea market tchotchke.

We know it’s all too easy to measure ourselves against others, and we shouldn’t. A quote attributed to David B. Schlosser has been going around on the internet lately:

Image: taaonline.netE

Easier said than done when you’re confronted with the exquisite reality of a more seasoned writer’s technique. It’s enough to make you swear off writing. Hell, it’s enough to make you want to quit reading.

Since we are artists and we must create or die, we have to use these moments not as cudgels with which to beat ourselves, but as tools to sharpen our ability. You simply cannot write effectively if you don’t read.

But Elizabeth, you say, reading in an analytical manner spoils the story for me. Yes, it can. However, you will not know if the jump is good unless you watch it. I “headit” when I’m reading, and yes, it can spoil a poorly executed story–all my attention is on how I would fix this sentence or that phrase or what was this idiot thinking that is not how a semi-colon works.

But I can still pick up books and lose myself completely before I remember I’m actually reading and not crawling around inside another person’s head in a land far, far away. A skilled writer can employ these techniques so well that a reader will remain unaware of them.

Book’s so good the kid doesn’t even notice he’s stuck in a damn attic all night.

Image: dvdactive.com

Pay attention to the techniques you see–do they work? Why? Why not? If you’ve read the book before and you don’t remember how the author used them, go back and read it again. This time, watch and learn.

Sometimes we can’t see what isn’t working. We’re too close. In that case, we can put our work in front of another person’s eyes. Beta readers and writing groups can provide helpful feedback.

If you have the money, consider hiring a professional editor to give you an in-depth analysis. Work can change; it can be improved. Someone with industry experience can help you not only make your story better but in the process, help you become a better writer.

I decided to pursue professional editing for Tunerville. I have little money; this is going to hurt financially, but I’ve reached an impasse. After countless rejections and two with the same critique, it’s time to admit I might need some help.

It feels a bit like I’m sending my baby off to war. Maybe I’ll find I just need more time and more practice before I get there. Maybe this will actually help me get the book published. I will not know until I give it a chance.

Don’t dwell on YOU when you read for analysis or solicit feedback. Think about your WORK and if the techniques you see can help it or not. Your personality and self-esteem are not the focus here. This isn’t therapy; it’s called improving your craft.

If you need help, ask for it. And be nice to yourself. You probably don’t suck as much as you think.