Can I tell you a story?
It's about a young reader who was so in love with books that she couldn't stop reading even if she tried.
That was me, of course. When I was a child, I could never be without a book. I always drifted toward the fantasy section in libraries, because I loved reading about worlds full of magic and wonder and excitement, so unlike and yet in many ways so similar to our own.
The heroes of those books may have had magic on their side, but they were real people just the same, prone to tough decisions and hard choices that often had world-shattering consequences.
All right, so maybe I never had magic, maybe I never had the fate of the world in my hands, maybe I never went on epic adventures, but with these books I could go along with characters I loved into worlds where all this was real.
One of the first authors who allowed me to do that was Diana Wynne Jones.
Diana Wynne Jones, author of books such as Howl's Moving Castle, and The Chrestomanci Quartet, was a prolific fantasy writer whose works spanned worlds, galaxies, and times, all written with a loving hand and a wry humor that sparkled in the midst of plots that were complex, gripping, and sometimes frightening.
She wrote complex, passionate characters who, despite their fantastic surroundings, were so believable that it made their problems and situations that much more real. When I was reading her books, I believed in the plot, I believed in the characters, and I believed in the world they lived in.
I don't remember when I first started reading her books, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was even before Harry Potter was first published. Diana Wynne Jones' books had a profound effect on me, one that I don't think I ever fully realized until recently. They practically defined the genre in my mind, and I reread them constantly, despite my habit of very rarely rereading books.
I even wrote her a letter after reading The Magicians of Caprona. She wrote back, thanking me for telling her how much I liked the book. It was, she said, one of the only ways she could really know that people did like her books.
I still have the letter. It's on the wall in my room back in Vermont.
Diana Wynne Jones died today, leaving behind her an enormous legacy of beautifully written fantasy novels, many of which I haven't even discovered yet. She created vast worlds that were incredibly detailed and full of life and wonder and the love that only a writer who truly loves the worlds they're creating can write.
Rest in peace, Diana. I will always love your books. Thank you for what you've done for book lovers and fantasy lovers everywhere.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
The Unfortunate Vacuum: A Not-So Tragic Tale
Once upon a time, in a beautiful city, there lived a young woman. She resided with a dear friend in the house of a man she had never met, under the condition that the two women should keep the house spic and span and safe and sound in the hopes that one day the house should be sold.
And so, one bright sunny day in March, the two women were told that the very next day there would be an open house. This of course required the house be quite clean, prompting the young women to, over the course of two and a half hours in the early evening, attack the project with great vigor.
Our heroine, the younger of the two girls by a mere matter of approximately four months, charged herself with sweeping and vacuuming the floors. This task was by no means difficult, simply a chore to be done, and done with cheer. However, there was one small misfortune.
As the girl vacuumed, she noticed that very little was being achieved. This was quite irking, especially since the vacuum itself was of a highly respected brand, and such a well reputed device really ought to handle itself better. However, it did not, and as time went on, the young woman began to believe that perhaps the brand did not deserve such high praise as it received daily. Perhaps the spokesman for the brand should not so proudly promote his devices. For, according to its oft-stated affirmation, the machine did not "lose suction," it appeared never to have suction in the first place!
Growing ever more frustrated but determined to finish her task, the young woman continued to push the dratted device over the floors of two levels, doing very little apart from pushing small pieces of lint across the carpets. It wasn't until she was very nearly finished that she discovered something that should have been found when she first began the endeavor. The top of the vacuum popped off, and when she tried to secure it once more, it proved a useless effort. Curious, the young woman peered at the components inside, and found it to be a filter, easily removed. She turned the filter over and reinserted it, and found the top to close quite cleanly. When she restarted the vacuum, it ran perfectly, cleaning the floors in a manner that lived up to its high reputation.
Cheered and triumphant over her victory over the vacuum, the girl's mood darkened when she realized that this meant she would have to once again clean every carpet that she had already supposedly cleaned.
Nevertheless, after such trials and tribulations, the house shone and sparkled from the efforts of the two ladies, and they were confident that no real estate agent could find fault with them.
And so, one bright sunny day in March, the two women were told that the very next day there would be an open house. This of course required the house be quite clean, prompting the young women to, over the course of two and a half hours in the early evening, attack the project with great vigor.
Our heroine, the younger of the two girls by a mere matter of approximately four months, charged herself with sweeping and vacuuming the floors. This task was by no means difficult, simply a chore to be done, and done with cheer. However, there was one small misfortune.
As the girl vacuumed, she noticed that very little was being achieved. This was quite irking, especially since the vacuum itself was of a highly respected brand, and such a well reputed device really ought to handle itself better. However, it did not, and as time went on, the young woman began to believe that perhaps the brand did not deserve such high praise as it received daily. Perhaps the spokesman for the brand should not so proudly promote his devices. For, according to its oft-stated affirmation, the machine did not "lose suction," it appeared never to have suction in the first place!
Growing ever more frustrated but determined to finish her task, the young woman continued to push the dratted device over the floors of two levels, doing very little apart from pushing small pieces of lint across the carpets. It wasn't until she was very nearly finished that she discovered something that should have been found when she first began the endeavor. The top of the vacuum popped off, and when she tried to secure it once more, it proved a useless effort. Curious, the young woman peered at the components inside, and found it to be a filter, easily removed. She turned the filter over and reinserted it, and found the top to close quite cleanly. When she restarted the vacuum, it ran perfectly, cleaning the floors in a manner that lived up to its high reputation.
Cheered and triumphant over her victory over the vacuum, the girl's mood darkened when she realized that this meant she would have to once again clean every carpet that she had already supposedly cleaned.
Nevertheless, after such trials and tribulations, the house shone and sparkled from the efforts of the two ladies, and they were confident that no real estate agent could find fault with them.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Blog.
That's a funny word.
Blog.
Supposedly comes from mashing "web log" together, but honestly, why call it a "web log" in the first place? Seems like kind of a strange thing to call it. I suppose it originated from when people were still calling it the "web" instead of the "internet" oh so many eons ago.
Many eons being, in this case, about ten years.
So someone started writing their thoughts out, thought it would be a cool idea if they showed them to other people using this fancy series of tubes, and called it a "web log." And then people decided that was a stupid name and really just slurred into "blog" anyway, so why not call it that?
And it stuck.
That's the story that I made up just now, and I'm sticking to it.
But honestly, words are strange. We don't think about it very much because we use them all the time, but I have this book that's buried in a case full of books sitting in my room right now because I don't have the space to put them... anyway I have this book. It's called L is for Lollygag: Quirky Words for a Clever Tongue. It's full of odd, rarely used words that are just fun to say aloud.
You know what, I'm going to dig it out so I can use an example.
Okay, here's a good one.
Peccadillo (pek-uh-DIL-oh) noun
A very small wrongdoing, nothing worth getting your underwear in a twist about.
Yes, that's a direct quote from the book.
Say the word out loud a couple of times. Use it in a sentence. Isn't it fun?
My junior year of college (last school year, for those of you who like keeping track), I would take a dry-erase marker and write up a "word of the day" on the tiles of our bathroom, encouraging my suitemates and I to use that word as much as possible.
'Course, it didn't quite work. I'd always forget to use the word after I'd written it up there, and before long I got lazy and it went from being a word of the day to being a word of the week to just not happening at all.
But I still think it's a good idea. From my perspective, the American vocabulary is not only shrinking, but also turning in a different direction, using lazier words, forgetting grammar, and not particularly caring if it gets something correct or not.
Is this a big deal? To me, it is. To many, it isn't.
I like words. They're interesting and I don't know nearly enough about them. So maybe I should start looking through this book some more.
Now, if you'll excuse me, three very small, very enterprising spiders are trying to make themselves at home on my ceiling. This is unacceptable.
That's a funny word.
Blog.
Supposedly comes from mashing "web log" together, but honestly, why call it a "web log" in the first place? Seems like kind of a strange thing to call it. I suppose it originated from when people were still calling it the "web" instead of the "internet" oh so many eons ago.
Many eons being, in this case, about ten years.
So someone started writing their thoughts out, thought it would be a cool idea if they showed them to other people using this fancy series of tubes, and called it a "web log." And then people decided that was a stupid name and really just slurred into "blog" anyway, so why not call it that?
And it stuck.
That's the story that I made up just now, and I'm sticking to it.
But honestly, words are strange. We don't think about it very much because we use them all the time, but I have this book that's buried in a case full of books sitting in my room right now because I don't have the space to put them... anyway I have this book. It's called L is for Lollygag: Quirky Words for a Clever Tongue. It's full of odd, rarely used words that are just fun to say aloud.
You know what, I'm going to dig it out so I can use an example.
Okay, here's a good one.
Peccadillo (pek-uh-DIL-oh) noun
A very small wrongdoing, nothing worth getting your underwear in a twist about.
Yes, that's a direct quote from the book.
Say the word out loud a couple of times. Use it in a sentence. Isn't it fun?
My junior year of college (last school year, for those of you who like keeping track), I would take a dry-erase marker and write up a "word of the day" on the tiles of our bathroom, encouraging my suitemates and I to use that word as much as possible.
'Course, it didn't quite work. I'd always forget to use the word after I'd written it up there, and before long I got lazy and it went from being a word of the day to being a word of the week to just not happening at all.
But I still think it's a good idea. From my perspective, the American vocabulary is not only shrinking, but also turning in a different direction, using lazier words, forgetting grammar, and not particularly caring if it gets something correct or not.
Is this a big deal? To me, it is. To many, it isn't.
I like words. They're interesting and I don't know nearly enough about them. So maybe I should start looking through this book some more.
Now, if you'll excuse me, three very small, very enterprising spiders are trying to make themselves at home on my ceiling. This is unacceptable.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Extended Metaphors (can be really excruciating)
Like many college graduates, I'm in Limbo.
Limbo, according to Wikipedia's "Limbo (disambiguation)" page, can refer to more things than I thought it could.
The first, and most applicable explanation, is the situation in afterlife speculated upon by Medieval Catholic theologians. Basically, if you died a non-Christian, but were basically an okay person, God said "oh hey, you're kind of cool, I like you. But you don't get heaven, sorry, that's only for mah special peeps." Then he stuck you in Limbo. Which was basically perpetual... sitting around. With a bunch of other people going, "hey, what's up. I'm bored." Only by the redemption granted by Jesus could you gain access to heaven and escape it.
People in Limbo probably don't do the Limbo, the second listing on the Wikipedia page, described as a dance that originated in Trinidad, wherein the dancer, in time to a Caribbean beat, would attempt to pass underneath a bamboo pole while leaning backwards. No touching allowed. As soon as you touch the pole or fall to the ground, you're out of the game.
Apparently Limbo can also refer to a movie, a video game, several novels of that title, and an anti-submarine weapon. Go figure.
Anyway, Limbo. I'm in it.
Both the Catholic theory of suspension in time and space and dogma and the dance.
Oh yeah. It's a fun time.
Basically, I've graduated. Go me! Yeeeeehaw! Wohoo!
Now what?
You'd expect a young woman with a degree in theatre to... I don't know, go to New York City or something, right? But no. I'm not feeling any particular desire to go live in NYC at all. So what do I do?
Well, right now I'm living with my parents, working a temp job in the Accounting department at a local hotel, where I can introduce myself to most of the staff by describing my job as "Gift Certificate Girl," and have them nod knowingly.
I never ever expected to be working as an accountant. Ever. But here I am.
But the job won't last forever. So what happens afterward?
My parents frequently encourage me to come up with ideas, make a plan of some sort, and TAKE ACTION! But the problem is that I have too many ideas. Go apply to work at Disney World and audition to be a performer? Go to culinary school and learn to be a baker? Travel abroad? Find a job in Boston? Find a job at home? Run away and join the circus? Be a train-hopping bum? Apply for a reality TV show and become an INSTANT STAR? The world is FULL of possibilities!
But the problem with endless ideas is that eventually I have to pick one. And it's so hard to choose, especially since I have no idea which one to pick. Choosing requires me to commit to something and throw the other options out the window for now.
So I'm waiting in Limbo, watching the other inhabitants of this forsaken city mope around with me, gazing up at a bright and shining heaven that is just out of reach. There's plenty of ladders leading up, but only one will get me there.
In dance terms, I'm that person in line who watches the pole get increasingly lower, watching it with alarm, and realizing that there is only one good way to get under the thing without falling on my butt. But I'm too scared of falling on my butt to just jump right under and go for it.
...well gosh, this all sounds horribly depressing. I just meant to give a description of where I was at in life, and here I am talking about failure and doom and theological concepts. Sorry about that.
Sing it, David Hasslehoff.
Limbo, according to Wikipedia's "Limbo (disambiguation)" page, can refer to more things than I thought it could.
The first, and most applicable explanation, is the situation in afterlife speculated upon by Medieval Catholic theologians. Basically, if you died a non-Christian, but were basically an okay person, God said "oh hey, you're kind of cool, I like you. But you don't get heaven, sorry, that's only for mah special peeps." Then he stuck you in Limbo. Which was basically perpetual... sitting around. With a bunch of other people going, "hey, what's up. I'm bored." Only by the redemption granted by Jesus could you gain access to heaven and escape it.
People in Limbo probably don't do the Limbo, the second listing on the Wikipedia page, described as a dance that originated in Trinidad, wherein the dancer, in time to a Caribbean beat, would attempt to pass underneath a bamboo pole while leaning backwards. No touching allowed. As soon as you touch the pole or fall to the ground, you're out of the game.
Apparently Limbo can also refer to a movie, a video game, several novels of that title, and an anti-submarine weapon. Go figure.
Anyway, Limbo. I'm in it.
Both the Catholic theory of suspension in time and space and dogma and the dance.
Oh yeah. It's a fun time.
Basically, I've graduated. Go me! Yeeeeehaw! Wohoo!
Now what?
You'd expect a young woman with a degree in theatre to... I don't know, go to New York City or something, right? But no. I'm not feeling any particular desire to go live in NYC at all. So what do I do?
Well, right now I'm living with my parents, working a temp job in the Accounting department at a local hotel, where I can introduce myself to most of the staff by describing my job as "Gift Certificate Girl," and have them nod knowingly.
I never ever expected to be working as an accountant. Ever. But here I am.
But the job won't last forever. So what happens afterward?
My parents frequently encourage me to come up with ideas, make a plan of some sort, and TAKE ACTION! But the problem is that I have too many ideas. Go apply to work at Disney World and audition to be a performer? Go to culinary school and learn to be a baker? Travel abroad? Find a job in Boston? Find a job at home? Run away and join the circus? Be a train-hopping bum? Apply for a reality TV show and become an INSTANT STAR? The world is FULL of possibilities!
But the problem with endless ideas is that eventually I have to pick one. And it's so hard to choose, especially since I have no idea which one to pick. Choosing requires me to commit to something and throw the other options out the window for now.
So I'm waiting in Limbo, watching the other inhabitants of this forsaken city mope around with me, gazing up at a bright and shining heaven that is just out of reach. There's plenty of ladders leading up, but only one will get me there.
In dance terms, I'm that person in line who watches the pole get increasingly lower, watching it with alarm, and realizing that there is only one good way to get under the thing without falling on my butt. But I'm too scared of falling on my butt to just jump right under and go for it.
...well gosh, this all sounds horribly depressing. I just meant to give a description of where I was at in life, and here I am talking about failure and doom and theological concepts. Sorry about that.
Sing it, David Hasslehoff.
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