Wednesday morning haiku
Jan. 11th, 2006 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniamid-January thaw:
roof leaks for first time in years
mom blames bad feng shui
There was also a 90-minute metro stoppage. Maybe I jinxed myself by saying the week was looking up. XD;;
Nevertheless: in what some might consider an act of public service,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sesame_seed sent me all(?) of Diana Wynne Jones. (And my sister thoughtfully piled them in the order listed on the Amazon form, so I read Chrissie's cards sequentially - 'twas highly amusing XD - although I am not sure whether this corresponds to the order in which I should read the books.) This is a great time for it as there was no Bleach anime last weekend and no Bleach manga til the 23rd, and the twitch is beginning to compromise my performance.
Charmed Life: I will unwrap these only as I intend to read them, because they have large friendly text designed to suck me in at inappropriate times. :P I read this one between 2AM and 4AM when I really should have been in bed. Though part of the reason I plowed through so fast was because it was an intensely uncomfortable read: for a good portion of it I emotionally identified with Gwendolen. XD; Not that I was remotely as sociopathic but I was petted and my cleverness made much of. I grew up with the conviction that I deserved exceptional handling, and I well remember the sense of towering blind rage I felt when adults dared to impose their arbitrary rules on me - let alone when the reasoning behind said rules impugned my competence or talent. I wasn't the sort of child to provoke grownups just to make a point, since the end result would have been punishment and I'm a pragmatist born, but I've never had any innate respect for authority either and Gwendolen's actions were the stuff of my revenge fantasies. I would cheerfully have murdered anyone who behaved toward me like Chrestomanci did to Gwendolen, and failing the ability to do so would certainly have disobeyed him every time his back was turned. XD Not that any of the adults intended to wind up the children for the sake of it, but ignoring misbehaviour is never the way to go. I was left feeling (as Cat and Janet pointed out at the end of the book) that they misread the siblings' personalities and handled the situation badly: a child like Gwendolen would have been more easily defused by a boring two-hour lecture on the wherefore of the house rules, as long as the argument was logical and she felt she was being paid attention, and a child like Cat would have been better served by total transparency.
Of course I say this now from the perspective of a grownup, I can hardly fathom how I would've felt if I'd read this book as a ten-year-old. Except that I'm glad I didn't. XD
Aside from my buttons getting pushed in the discipline of child psychology I like the characters, Chrestomanci and Millie in particular - and Janet the Well-Adjusted, as such things go a presentable model for girls sucked into alternate magical universes. XD The worldbuilding revelations at the end seemed a bit rushed but that's what the other books are for I suppose.
***
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: good, but fell a little short of what I wanted out of it. Am I spoilt by all the recent literary adaptations? XD I thought Lucy was played too simpering and cutesy, although that may have been difficult to avoid. (It wasn't until I started poking at reviews online that I realised a lot of people actually disliked Lucy! Having thought about it I can see why, but when I was a child I totally identified with Lucy - being non-devious not to say dumb, forthright not to say a damned poor liar, usually the 'good' child and - well, I wasn't a bit of a tomboy, but neither was the Lucy in the film although she is in my head.) And I don't think I really understood how Edmund could have found his siblings annoying until I watched the movie; sometimes the filmmakers cranked up the emotional subtext but I need to reread the books too (post-Pullman controversy XD). Of the changes I recognised, I liked some and was meh about others. To be honest I prefer Peter as he is in the books with less obvious uncertainty, but to play Edmund off that would've been infuriating.
Aslan~ *wants to pet* ;_; While walking home I abruptly thought of those reliefs of the Assyrian royal lion hunt, in the British Museum.
Hmm, I want to see Dawn Treader. XD
roof leaks for first time in years
mom blames bad feng shui
There was also a 90-minute metro stoppage. Maybe I jinxed myself by saying the week was looking up. XD;;
Nevertheless: in what some might consider an act of public service,
sesame_seed sent me all(?) of Diana Wynne Jones. (And my sister thoughtfully piled them in the order listed on the Amazon form, so I read Chrissie's cards sequentially - 'twas highly amusing XD - although I am not sure whether this corresponds to the order in which I should read the books.) This is a great time for it as there was no Bleach anime last weekend and no Bleach manga til the 23rd, and the twitch is beginning to compromise my performance.Charmed Life: I will unwrap these only as I intend to read them, because they have large friendly text designed to suck me in at inappropriate times. :P I read this one between 2AM and 4AM when I really should have been in bed. Though part of the reason I plowed through so fast was because it was an intensely uncomfortable read: for a good portion of it I emotionally identified with Gwendolen. XD; Not that I was remotely as sociopathic but I was petted and my cleverness made much of. I grew up with the conviction that I deserved exceptional handling, and I well remember the sense of towering blind rage I felt when adults dared to impose their arbitrary rules on me - let alone when the reasoning behind said rules impugned my competence or talent. I wasn't the sort of child to provoke grownups just to make a point, since the end result would have been punishment and I'm a pragmatist born, but I've never had any innate respect for authority either and Gwendolen's actions were the stuff of my revenge fantasies. I would cheerfully have murdered anyone who behaved toward me like Chrestomanci did to Gwendolen, and failing the ability to do so would certainly have disobeyed him every time his back was turned. XD Not that any of the adults intended to wind up the children for the sake of it, but ignoring misbehaviour is never the way to go. I was left feeling (as Cat and Janet pointed out at the end of the book) that they misread the siblings' personalities and handled the situation badly: a child like Gwendolen would have been more easily defused by a boring two-hour lecture on the wherefore of the house rules, as long as the argument was logical and she felt she was being paid attention, and a child like Cat would have been better served by total transparency.
Of course I say this now from the perspective of a grownup, I can hardly fathom how I would've felt if I'd read this book as a ten-year-old. Except that I'm glad I didn't. XD
Aside from my buttons getting pushed in the discipline of child psychology I like the characters, Chrestomanci and Millie in particular - and Janet the Well-Adjusted, as such things go a presentable model for girls sucked into alternate magical universes. XD The worldbuilding revelations at the end seemed a bit rushed but that's what the other books are for I suppose.
***
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: good, but fell a little short of what I wanted out of it. Am I spoilt by all the recent literary adaptations? XD I thought Lucy was played too simpering and cutesy, although that may have been difficult to avoid. (It wasn't until I started poking at reviews online that I realised a lot of people actually disliked Lucy! Having thought about it I can see why, but when I was a child I totally identified with Lucy - being non-devious not to say dumb, forthright not to say a damned poor liar, usually the 'good' child and - well, I wasn't a bit of a tomboy, but neither was the Lucy in the film although she is in my head.) And I don't think I really understood how Edmund could have found his siblings annoying until I watched the movie; sometimes the filmmakers cranked up the emotional subtext but I need to reread the books too (post-Pullman controversy XD). Of the changes I recognised, I liked some and was meh about others. To be honest I prefer Peter as he is in the books with less obvious uncertainty, but to play Edmund off that would've been infuriating.
Aslan~ *wants to pet* ;_; While walking home I abruptly thought of those reliefs of the Assyrian royal lion hunt, in the British Museum.
Hmm, I want to see Dawn Treader. XD
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-11 08:01 pm (UTC)I read the book when I was a little kid, so I identified with Cat more, possibly. However, Chrestomanci is er, more efficacious in the other books when it comes to dealing with children. Basically I think Witch Week and Magicians of Caprona can be read in either order. Magicians of Caprona is set in the same world as Charmed Life, while Witch Week is set in a Britain like our own, except with Witches. I would save the Lives of Christopher Chant for last, as it is especially interesting to read post-Charmed Life. XD
no subject
Date: 2006-01-11 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-11 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-11 11:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 01:16 am (UTC)Dawn Treader movie vote seconded. It seems the least burdened of all the books; I loved The Horse and His Boy but was of course quite uncomfortable with the treatment of Calormen.