Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
I read…a lot. Here’s where I ramble about books and printed media.
Another “X greatest Y” list has appeared. This, of course, means it’s meme-time!
Working from the Guardian’s list of the 50 best book-to-film adaptations (discussion as to what films should or should not be on this list is in progress over at kottke.org), I’m tagging each line with a B if I’ve read the book, and an M if I’ve seen the movie.
And with that, we’re off…
Of the many contributions Robert Heinlein made to the world, I think the word ‘grok‘ is my personal favorite.
Grok (pronounced grock) is a verb roughly meaning “to understand completely” or more formally “to achieve complete intuitive understanding”. It was coined by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land, where it is part of the fictional Martian language and introduced to English speakers by a man raised by Martians.
It should be made clear that there is no exact definition for grok; it is a fictional word intended not to be “understood completely”.
In the Martian tongue, it literally means “to drink” but is used in a much wider context. A character in the novel (not the primary user) defines it:
“Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because we are from Earth) as color means to a blind man.”
I’m working my way through the last few chapters of my MAT097 (Elementary Algebra) assignments (factoring, rational expressions, working my way towards quadratic equations), and while it’s not quite as difficult as it was back in high school, and as long as I follow the patterns, plug all the numbers and letters in the right places, and don’t make any stupid mistakes swapping positive and negative signs around, then I end up getting the right answers more often than not.
But I sure don’t grok it. Don’t think I ever will, either.
Still…as long as I’m getting the right answers the majority of the time, then I’m doing okay. Not great…but okay. And that’s fine with me.
“Groove Radio pres. House (full mix)” by Various Artists from the album Groove Radio pres. House (full mix) (1997, 1:13:46).
Prairie and I just got home from seeing The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. We were a little nervous going in: not only was this a movie adaptation of a favorite childhood book (something which all to often suffers when translated to the screen), but Prairie’s sister Hope had seen it last week and hadn’t been terribly impressed. Once all’s said and done, though…
So. Very. Good.
Story-wise, the movie is very nearly — and quite successfully — a direct adaptation of the book, with only a very few changes made along the way. The most major change is the addition of a few minutes of prologue to the film, expanding a single sentence from the book (“This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids.”) in order to help modern audiences get a feel for the time period and the reasoning behind the children’s visit to the country. A later addition — a confrontation at the base of a frozen waterfall — doesn’t insert itself quite as smoothly, but still doesn’t come across as too jarring.
Effects-wise, the film does wonderfully. Aslan, while not perfect, is quite acceptably realized, but the real standouts are the creatures created by Lord of the Rings veterans Weta. From Mr. Tumnus and his fellow fauns to the centaurs, from the Minotaur to the harpy, from the gryphons to the phoenix…across the board, absolutely stunning creature effects. Both the centaurs and the phoenix were deemed “better than in the Harry Potter movies” by Prairie and me, and the harpy in the White Witch’s army was, for me, a true jaw-dropper. So much stuff, so beautifully realized.
Last — but, of course, far from least — the characters themselves. The children were wonderful (especially Georgie Henley as Lucy), James McAvoy was suitably charming as Mr. Tumnus, and Tilda Swinton as the White Witch…oh, I got such a kick out of her, especially during the ending battle as she drives her polar bear-drawn chariot across the battlefield with Aslan’s shorn mane fashioned into a battle headdress. Simply gorgeous.
And as for the “Christian element”…eeeh. Sure, the allegory’s in the movie as in the book, but without it being pointed out, I don’t think most people would care one way or the other. Those who look for it will find it, but it’s certainly not like there’s a big neon “Christ Figure” sign pointing at Aslan every time he comes on screen. If anything, there’s a bit less overt references to Christian mythology in the movie than in the book — while both refer to the children as Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve, the movie never mentions the White Witch’s origins as the daughter of Adam’s first wife Lilith and a giant.
All in all, both Prairie and I came out quite satisfied. Some small quibbles here and there, to be sure (neither of us particularly cared for the stylized approach to the moments after Jadis is defeated), but on the whole a marvelously successful job of translating the book to the screen. Hurrah!
And now I’m off to find some turkish delight…
After reading Terrence’s ‘Saying No to Narnia‘ and Pharyngula’s ‘Narnia as an inoculation‘, both of which pointed to a Guardian UK article titled ‘Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion‘, I was somewhat annoyed. As an open-minded, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, anti-Bush liberal who was brought up in a Christian household and counts Christianity as a major part of who I am and why I’m an open-minded, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, anti-Bush liberal, it occasionally gets under my skin when I’m reminded yet again that ‘Christian’ has become a dirty word synonymous with the worst of the bigoted bible-thumping set, tainting anything that it touches.
It was quite nice to see Arcterex’s take on the same article, then:
I read the Narnia books as a child, and absolutely loved them. They had a similar draw as modern day Harry Potter. The downtrodden who think they aren’t anybody in the world finding out that they are a heros in a magical world.
Of course, then I found out later on in live about the religious overtones in the books…
And couldn’t care less. A good story is a good story, and personally I find this sort of ignorant reporting as bad as the Christian groups who go around saying how Harry Potter is promoting kids to become satanists and how it’s an evil book. It’s a friggin’ book and a good story. Geez.
Damn skippy. Sure, there are Christian overtones to the Narnia stories. There are Christian overtones to the Matrix stories, the Lord of the Rings stories, the Star Wars stories, and countless other stories (both printed and filmed), too. Why all the rancor? Just because the religious right (who all too often seem to embody the antithesis to the Christianity I grew up with) has jumped all over The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, is it suddenly impossible to go out and enjoy a fun fantasy movie?
Sure, you can read all sorts of meaning into the stories and why they’re being brought to the screen now — religious indoctrination, right-wing propelled mass media conspiracy theories, whatever. You can also tell your inner Fox Mulder that every so often it doesn’t matter and go watch a movie.
That’s what I’m planning on doing.
Well, it took a few hours (spread over the past few days) of free-time puttering, but my entire book collection (that isn’t loaned out, loaned out and not returned, lost, or still sitting somewhere at my folks’ house in Anchorage) is now entered into my LibraryThing catalog.
A paltry 373 books in total. Meh. I thought I’d be doing better than that…but then, I know there’s quite a bit that’s missing for one reason or another (books I remember having that aren’t there, series that are only half-complete, and other similar things). Still, it’s not a bad overview of my reading habits.
I may end up creating another account for Prairie and cataloging her collection also. That particular project is going to wait for a little while at least, though…getting mine done in two days is a good enough accomplishment for now.
Neat new web toy I just found: LibraryThing — catalog and tag your book collection. I just spent some time putting in a few shelves worth of my library…here’s my current profile. Neat!
The Guardian UK ran a survey voting for the top 20 geek novels written since 1932, and in ‘net meme tradition, here’s the list with those I’ve read in bold.
13 out of 20…65%. Not bad, but I could do better. Time to add to the ever-growing reading list!
In Someone is Watching, a movie that Prairie got for me as a silly Halloween present that otherwise doesn’t rate much more than “laughably bad” (it was $1 at the local dollar store), there was this gem of a quote, about a character’s eight year old son:
He has a terrific imagination, he’s going to be the next Ray Bradbury.
Anyone who’s familiar with Ray Bradbury’s works would be able to tell you that that’s probably not really a good sign.
Time Magazine’s list of the top 100 novels of all time (in alphabetical order, not ranked, English-language, 1923-present). As always, items in bold are the ones I’ve read.
I ranted a while ago about the Cheaper by the Dozen film, a bastardization of one of my childhood favorite books, vowing not to see the results.
It’s time for another vow — this time, sadly, for Cheaper by the Dozen 2.
Never, never, never. The only even vaguely interesting pieces of the trailer were two quarter-second long shots of girls in bikinis…and since if I ever feel the need to see that I can do a quick Flickr search, that takes care of that.
Would someone please just forcibly retire Steve Martin and put us all out of our misery?