The Golden Compass

I feel like Phillip Pullman's The Golden Compass shouldn't have been as difficult to get through as it ended up being. I read the first 98 pages or so and then switched to the audio book for the remainder, which didn't really help the experience any as I didn't like all of their voices. They were for the most part appropriately picked and suited the characters, but suited them in the way which enhanced the things I didn't like about them.

I really liked the concept behind the novel. The idea behind the daemons and the world was really brilliant and interesting. However, the characters were what really had me struggling to enjoy the story - especially Lyra. She has a tendency to be rather selfish and she lies nearly constantly. When you're lying "out of habit", it's a bit of a problem. One could chalk it up to her being a child, and to a degree I'd accept it. Children do tend to be a bit selfish and she is imaginative...BUT she still gives little to no thought to her lying, and that's what bothered me the most. There are never any consequences to her lying; nothing bad ever happens as a result of it.

The one time she does stop to think, "Oh wait, this could end up badly" is when she puts Yorrick in a situation that he must find the other bear. But it ends up he wants to find the other bear anyway and he wins, so still nothing ill comes of it. When something bad does occur because of her - that Roger is taken by her father - it has nothing to do with her lying and is more a random happenstance. She nearly completely forgets about Roger until they stumble upon the first severed child and she realizes it could be him.

Most of the book is constantly talking about dust. Dust, dust, dust, dust. Lots of talking of it with little explanation to what it is. When Lyra finally encounters her father and has the prime opportunity to ask the person who would know the most...well, despite thinking it would be best not to let him know she knows he's her father, its the first thing she blurts out. Her father is incredibly casual about it, which almost made it seem silly that he hid it in the first place. Her reasoning for being angry about not being told is that it made her "feel stupid when she found out"? That seemed a...strange way to put it. Well, besides that, when she FINALLY after all this time asks the question everyone has been wondering - what the hell is dust? - the answer is "Well, let me pull out my bible here..."

Really. Well. I have nothing against incorporating the religious, and while it continued to explain what we had already figured out about what the dust had to do with growing up, it still didn't explain much about WHAT it is and WHERE it comes from and WHY. I really didn't feel like it explained anything at all. I still don't understand what her father intends to discover, or why they want to separate them from dust. Just because the dust is proof of original sin? Well...uh...okay? And Lyra's reasoning for going is because if they want to destroy it because its bad, and they're bad, it must be good? Well, uh, alright then.

And then there's that they care more for daemons than people for whatever reason. When the find the severed child, he's a horrid, frightening sight - and they consider he might be better off dead than alive. Yet when they find the daemons who were severed, by George, this is terrible; we gotta help 'em! Her parents both seem insane, and its awfully convenient that this girl who thought herself an orphan was actually being cared for by all these people who were in fact in some way or other related to her all along. Too convenient and bizarre.

Then there's the scene where the airship guy just wanted to know if he was getting paid or not and ended up getting into a twenty minute philosophical discussion with the witch about fate. My god! Is he getting paid or isn't he?! I don't even think they ever answered it.

It's a shame that such an interesting concept had to be wasted with annoying characters and random ramblings. Bah...and this is all I really wish to discuss on the book. Much looking forward to moving on and not having to listen to Lyra's high-pitched whining any longer!

The Dark Tower 1 - The Gunslinger

For this week I decided to read Stephen King's first book of The Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger. I already knew I wasn't going to read The Hobbit or LOTR right away...I had tried before, and never again. It is exactly the type of books I don't really enjoy reading - waaaay too much description for me. It just bores me and then I lose interest in everything else that is happening. Unfortunately for me, that is exactly how most fantasy and even science fiction books are written. I'm rather picky in these genres...Many I don't find myself interested in because they sound the same as many before them, while others scare me away with their pages and pages of long descriptive paragraphs. Well, regardless...

The book was just kind of "okay" to me. The writing was fine, but I didn't find the story particularly engaging. It kind or irritated me that I had a lot of questions which weren't ever answered in this first book - like why Roland is obsessed with his journey to the tower, what exactly IS the tower, and where the heck are they anyway?! There seemed to be a discontinuity between time where they were. Roland seems to be from an older time, yet knows what a gas pump is. Yet the world of Jake from New York City was completely baffling to him and he didn't understand most of what he would talk about  of that place. Since they seem to be so disjointed in their times, I found myself baffled and wondering about where they must be and how they can be so disjointed. And it seems there is something wrong with the world, that its in some kind of chaos, yet I don't understand still how exactly or why. I can only assume the gunslingers' journey has something to do with saving it. And why is he the last anyway? Is he some kind of immortal and time has moved on, and that's how Jake has come to be in a more modern time? Or are they perhaps in some other dimension of field of existence where people come when they die (since Jake did die in NY before the man in the suit took him)? I really have no idea. Roland also seemed very apathetic and accepting he was told was to come, and he wouldn't really dispute it. His apathy certainly didn't help me feel any less apathetic towards the book.

I like my stories to make sense. It's not that I think they have to tell you everything, no, not at all - I like having to wonder about things. But I don't like being wondering about everything and getting little to no answers to anything by the end of the first book. But perhaps that's just me, and I'm the same person who doesn't feel the need to be described every flower in the field or every item that they packed...If they pull it out and its nothing unusual, I'll assume they packed it.

A Wild Sheep Chase

I enjoyed reading Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase and found to be very engaging. The plot's mystery was really unique and intriguing, and I especially liked seeing the pieces start to come together and how things that initially seemed insignificant would play into the picture. However, the end left me a little bewildered. I think I understood some parts of it, but not all of it. That Rat was dead and the same being as the Sheepman I had already guessed, but for much after that I was not so sure. Why does the protagonist not tell that Rat is dead to anyone, like his friend J? Who is the man in the suit going to meet up at the house - would be able to meet Rat's ghost, or Sheepman? Is the sheep going to enter him so he can continue his boss' work? But then didn't Rat kill himself to destroy the sheep, or was it simply so he wouldn't be the one slave to it? And I am still not completely clear on why the man in the suit had him go on this journey himself when he already knew much of the answers already.

The story didn't seem very horror-like to me; more like just a mystery. I wouldn't consider myself that big of a horror fan; I have seen some movies, but if they seem more like gore films I tend to stay away. The psychological thrillers are a lot more exciting and interesting to me. Though I think the Japanese horror genre tends to be more psychological than perhaps some other horror films, and have more of a mystery to be solved story. My knowledge isn't that well in the area, but I think from the few I am familiar with that that statement could be true.

I don't really know what to talk about in particular about A Wild Sheep Chase though. I feel a bit confused still at the ending and can't think of what else to say. So this is all I'll put up for now, but shall be perhaps revised after the class discussion.

Interview with a Vampire

This week I read Ann Rice's Interview with a Vampire. Vampires are a subject I find, well, "okay". The nature of their being is interesting, but I usually find myself not all that interested in stories about them for whatever reason. My reaction to it now is just kind of like "Oh, vampires, don't even get me started". I think the appeal is supposed to be that they're sensitive beings who got thrust into being villains, so they're simply misunderstood. They have to watch the world change around them while they don't, and woe is them because they're also dead. They're not "human". I think this is what I have always disliked about vampires -they mull over and whine about how "not human" they are, yet they act, behave, and think in very human ways. They apparently have feelings and can care about others. Sure, they have to drink blood to survive, can't go out in the sun, etc. but on the inside, their minds are still human. So what's to whine about? They don't even have to kill the person - or people to begin with in most cases - to survive, and on the bright side at least they can consider themselves keeping the population in check. The fact they live forever unchanging is really far more disturbing than their killing ways, which they always do with a bit of remorse.

That said, what I did like about Interview with a Vampire was that not all of them where that way. Louis pretty much followed that to the letter, which left me not all that engaged, but once Claudia entered the picture I got more interested in the story. Claudia is forever trapt in the child's body - her mind ages and becomes very much adult, but her body never does. This bothers her. Also since she was so young, she is without knowledge of what it is to be human, unlike the others. The vampire life is all she's known or can remember; she is a much more collected and cool killer than Louis could ever be, despite his teachings. She knows the emotions as they do, but do not seem to hold the same meaning. She can hate and love to get what she wants. But although she has a very much adult mind, she still in some ways is still a child. She always wants someone with her, to love her - though at the same time it can be debated its only because she needs them to survive.

At the same time, as human as Louis acts, it seems clear he isn't and is just latching to the memory of what it is to be human - how he should feel, should act. He can say he loves someone such as Armand without much thought, and yet even when he eventually leaves, its more of "Oh, he's gone". But then, that is after he has finally chosen to leave behind his humanity side after Claudia and Madeline's death. It almost makes Armand, who seemed more of the calm, cool vampire, seem still more human than Louis in the end. Louis' struggle - the struggle to accept he's not human and then whether he continues to act human or not - is a very real one for him through the story. But even so he hasn't forgotten it completely - he can recall it all and relay it with as much detail and passion as if it had just happened. Its more the time continually going by which dulls what this means, and as he's lost all he cared for, its easier to maintain a colder exterior.

I found the boy listening to the tale's response to the story a bit ironic. Louis has told him of his anguish, and of all his loss, and even after learning from Armand has not made him feel any different about his curse...and how they agonize over their deadness. And then the boy wants to become a vampire - so that he "may truly live"! Yet, he's the one whose alive and who should appreciate his living state. The vampires continue to pain over what they can no longer feel or do, or that they cannot even die, and yet the boy longs for it! He thinks it sounds wondrous; he cannot understand as Louis does that he is the one whose better off. He is the one who can live, without guilt over having to sin to live, and can appreciate what comes in life because of the finality of death. To the immortal ones who understand their immortality, all else seems to hold little to no meaning because it doesn't last like them. They can't appreciate it like they could when they were alive. They simply observe things happen and continue living as they do. For those who can't handle the changes in the world, they fall further into despair until they decide they can't take it any longer and end their lives. At the same time you wonder how they aren't human (again, they act in human ways), but also how that makes them any more alive than the humans?

Overall I suppose I'd say I did enjoy it and it was without a doubt and interesting read, and one of the better vampire stories I've read (although I found Lestat's feeding on the little boy in a very sexual way really disturbing). I found the perspective on them to be engaging and somehow different, and especially the character of Claudia to be particularly interesting. Some parts I found dull, and Louis and his continual, constant struggling got annoying, but overall it wasn't a bad book at all.