What Do We Owe Art, the Past, and Our Own Tastes and Morals?

Daisy over at Dear Diaspora attempts to reconcile the abhorrent parts of the Bible with her modern liberal Jewish values. I plan to venture deeper into literature in this post, but for now let’s stick with religion. One of her commentators, Rebecca, wrote:

I feel like there’s a barrier I can’t push through, of seeing those positive elements having been historically mixed (particularly in Biblical times) with things I want no part of: slavery, subjugation and genocide of one’s enemies, rape, and so on. I realize this is emphatically not the Judaism I was raised in, but I don’t know how to get past my own discomfort with those portions of its roots.

Michael in the comments adds:

The problem is that for a large number of stories it’s pretty clear that God is supporting the abhorrence. For instance, when God kills Israelites with quails, for peering into the ark, sends a bear to eat children etc. I think the stories of atrocities where you could read the sentiment not being supported (eg. Jephtah’s sacrifice of his daughter) aren’t that prevalent compared to the first kind of story.

I think first, religious or not, one still needs to read these stories with an understanding geared towards their deeper meanings behind the literal events. For example, when Israelites are punished by G-d for peering into the ark it’s not so much that readers are meant to celebrate the murder and destruction of innocent people (though, by disobeying G-d the story is also suggesting they aren’t innocent either), but what the story is emphasizing thematically is the holiness of the ark. It is so holy that it is not meant to be looked upon by human eyes. Otherwise, you’ll end up as a cheap special effect in a Steven Spielberg movie for all eternity as your punishment:

Let’s take another controversial story from the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah. Many draw upon this story to promote homophobia. When I was an undergrad I remember taking a psychology class where a young woman in the class sucked up precious minutes arguing with the professor about the evils of homosexuality. During the lecture the professor discussed various psychological theories about human sexuality, while this young woman continually turned to the Sodom and Gomorrah story to support for her argument why homosexuals are evil. It was really disturbing to say the least. So I’ve seen firsthand how someone can abuse this story for their own twisted purposes.

As someone who strongly supports Gay rights and Gay marriage I suspect many would believe I would find this story problematic. However, there are themes happening in the story that I can support. Before we delve into those deeper issues, let’s recount the actual story.

Two angels enter Sodom to scout it out and see if they should reconsider destroying it. Lot invites them to stay in his home. The townspeople gather around his house after noticing these strangers arrival.

And they shouted to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may be intimate with them.” – Genesis 19:5

Lot responds to this by pimping out his virgin daughters to the men in the streets. They refuse and accuse Lot of acting presumptuous:

“Stand back! The fellow,” they said, “came here as an alien, and already he acts the ruler! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” – Genesis 19:9

When Lot refuses to turn the strangers over they promise to punish him. The angels grab Lot and pull him inside the house, tell him to make preparations with his family, and the city goes boom.

Now it is important that whatever my personal beliefs might be to remain intellectually honest when discussing this work. Before moving on let’s look at the infamous Leviticus line condemning homosexuality:

“If a man lies with a male as one lies with a woman, the two of them have done an abhorrent thing; they shall be put to death—their bloodguilt is upon them.” – Leviticus 20:13

It is worth noting that this whole section of Leviticus 20 deals with regulations of human sexuality, except for the very beginning which warns against sacrificing your children in fire to Molech. The other kind of sexuality Leviticus warns against includes incest of various sorts, bestiality, and adultery.

When paired up with the infamous Leviticus line condemning homosexuality the Sodom story from Genesis pretty much fits the same mold. It is safe to say one of Sodom’s sins according to the logic of the Bible is homosexuality. However, I think you have to pair it up with the line from a different book to get that meaning. On its own, there is no reason to believe homosexuality is the “sin” that Sodom is being punished for. More is also happening here. The more obvious ethical issue occurring in this scene is attempted rape. They want to drag out the strangers and gang rape them in the streets. Surprisingly, I think a lot of people miss this point when reading the Sodom story, even though it’s a pretty blatant sentiment. It is pretty clear that the Bible is condemning such actions. Condemning rape, of course, is a sentiment I can get behind.

The next part of the story is also problematic. Lot offers his virgin daughters to be ravished by the men in the streets instead of the strangers, which reminds me of one of those recent news stories about the disgusting things happening on Craigslist. Clearly this is misogynist as hell.

Nevertheless, I would argue this part of the story ought to be read more allegorically than for its literalness. I am not saying we should ignore the events in the narrative; they do occur, they do put a higher premium on men over women as part of the plot, and they are sexist. However, I want to point out that in reality I strongly doubt the xenophobic Ancient Israelites often gave away their daughters to be ravished by a bunch of strangers; women could so easily die during childbirth and children died so easily and every hand was another hand to work the fields and feed hungry mouths that you didn’t just go around throwing away men or women in your family without some hesitation. So what is this story trying to say?

Many people don’t realize that when Genesis was written angels hadn’t been developed into the full-fledged named beings they would become later in Judaism and Christianity and Islam. Angels at this point were substantiations of G-d. When we consider this we have a new way of looking at the scene. Lot is offering his own daughters in defense of beings that are basically limbs of G-d. The basic message of the story is one should be willing to sacrifice their own family first than sin against G-d. To extrapolate further, we might say it is better to lose your own family than offend G-d, or let others desecrate the Lord. This doesn’t mean literally sacrifice your family for G-d in flames (see my earlier comments about Molech in Leviticus and the Isaac story), but is meant figuratively. You should worship the Lord in such a way that G-d comes first in your heart and loyalties, even before your own family.

The scene then ends with the townspeople threatening Lot saying they will punish him worse than they were originally going to treat the strangers. So they will perhaps rape, torture, and then kill him. Or maybe not. The threat is not specific, so it’s left to the reader to fill in the blank. They point specifically towards his foreignness since he is an alien resident living in town. They are oppressing a stranger and their neighbor, another major sin in the Bible, one that gets far more air time than any Biblical condemnation of men sleeping together. In fact, one might read this as the worst sin of all.

In the part where Lot offers his daughters:

“Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you please; but do not do anything to these men, since they have come under the shelter of my roof.” – Genesis 19:8 (emphasis mine).

The importance adheres in the last lines of that quote. In the Ancient world nothing was more important than the guest-host relationship. Wars have been started for violating it (see Homer’s The Iliad). In Herodotus’ Histories he tells a story of the Lydian King Croesus whose son is accidentally murdered by a guest. Since the guest killed him accidentally the murderer himself has not violated the guest-host relationship (if done purposefully that would be a different story), and Croesus cannot retaliate because of the guest-host relationship; though, the murderer in his own guilt over killing his host’s son eventually kills himself. I think in this tale from Herodotus we find a remarkable parallel in theme to Lot offering his daughters to the mob instead of his guests (be they angels or not). It is better to sacrifice your own daughter or son than violate the guest-host relationship in the Ancient world.

So what we have here is a very sophisticated text with a lot happening under the surface. To summarize, it would seem the sins and issues that the Bible identifies here are: homosexuality, attempted gang-rape, violation of the guest-host relationship, respect and loyalty towards G-d before your own children, and oppressing the stranger and your neighbor. There is not one sin at the heart of the Sodom story, but a lot of sins. Most of these values I think the average modern liberal could get behind, besides the condemnation of homosexuality. Maybe not the G-d before children theme either, but I leave that up to the individual since as I pointed out it is not meant literally.

Another complaint might be the actual outcome of the story itself. Is the destruction of the city and the modern equivalent of genocide really an acceptable moral? This is one I often hear spouted from atheists’ mouths, especially in regards to the Egyptian’s fate in Exodus. Often I find myself unsure how to reply to this reasonable objection. I could cite the midrash about the angels being rebuked for cheering the death of the Egyptians who were also created by G-d’s hand, implying that they are equally His children, but somehow that seems sort of lame. I could assert that if a being such as G-d does exist He does in fact have final say over life and death (we would accept this on an individual level when we speak about the Book of Life on Yom Kippur or even in the Psalms when we talk about how G-d extends our breath each day), G-d literally controls each individual human life in his hand and we accept this in a completely amoral fashion, so whether it is one person or thousands at a time who die seems like splitting hairs and bean counting. Genocide is a concept that applies strictly to human beings; after all, no one ever bothers accusing Zeus of planned genocide in the Iliad or the Aeneaid. Relating to this section in particular I am not so sure I would say this part celebrates genocide; after all, Abraham goes all out to try and find enough righteous people to prevent the destruction of the city. In other words, the story recognizes the horrific nature of this act and it is a last resort. So I’m not sure the story celebrates it, but presents it as the only choice left after other options fail to prevent it. There are other parts of the Bible where the people themselves commit genocide and ethnic cleansing; I’m particularly thinking of Joshua. I have no real defense for this part of the narrative, nor would I want to defend it.

So far we have been talking about how interpretation can soften some of the nastier bits from problematic texts. Let’s quickly look at a modern example from literature where interpretation plays a huge part in how you will react to a text, Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno, a novella about a slave uprising on a Spanish ship. Some have declared this story racist, focusing heavily on the white point-of-view character, Amasa Delano’s, stereotyping of the blacks as happy plantations slaves and with emotions equivalent to wild animals. Others have argued that Amasa Delano’s point-of-view is actually being critiqued in the story as representative of Northern and Southern American stereotypes about blacks, which are overturned and challenged at every turn through subtle hints provided in the narrative that Amasa misses but the reader notices. Still others have argued that the story subverts black stereotypes by linking the African rebels in the story to the achievements of Egyptian civilization, which at this time was being whitewashed. Still others claim the novel subverts American stereotypes about the black slave population by emphasizing the lead rebel’s intelligence who manages to overthrow his oppressors not with brute strength but with brains and cunning by outsmarting whites. Still others see this story as being inspired by fear of the upcoming Civil War, a small microcosm of what such a Civil War over slavery might look like, with whites being slaughtered by blacks as revenge for their own degradation. Still others like Yvor Winters claim the story is not thematically about slavery at all, but is really an allegory about good and evil. Who do I think is right? All of them, even Yvor Winters. A great deal of these interpretations depends upon how you chose to read the story’s position on the racist point-of-view character, Amasa Delano. Likewise, even as the story criticizes slavery, subverts the beliefs whites hold about blacks, suggests a deeper humanity to the black characters, I think it also shows fear over the idea of a violent black uprising (and by extension a fear over the impending Civil War), does degenerate into stereotypes even when it challenges them in other ways, and makes you rather uncomfortable to root for either side in the story. I think this last point is key to understanding the story. Yvor Winters is right that it is about good and evil on a deeper abstract level, but wrong that it isn’t about slavery. It is about good and evil as it relates to slavery and oppression. The story leaves you uncomfortable with any of the solutions: slavery is presented as evil, but the black uprising with its violent murder of whites and torment of the ship’s captain into his own form of temporary slavery is presented as evil too. The question underlying the story seems to be: how far is a person allowed to resist oppression before they themselves start committing evil? These aren’t historically specific issues that only apply to the American Civil War either. This question still informs much of our own thought about modern day conflicts today and demonstrates exactly what we mean by universal themes. Take the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. How far should a Palestinian be allowed to resist Israeli occupation of their territory? Should violence be a legitimate form of resistance? And is it still legitimate if the primary victims of that violence is innocent Israeli children? How far should Israel be allowed to take its defense of its people from terrorists and hostile countries? But getting back to the original text, it isn’t hard to see how people can accuse of racism and others can defend it of racism.

Reinterpreting problematic texts isn’t the only issue. Rebecca’s remarks remind me a bit of my mom who cannot watch certain movies because the violence is too graphic for her. This always seemed a rather strange sentiment to me since one of my guilty pleasures is horror movies chalk full of psychopaths in masks performing gruesome murders of virginal teens for no particular reason other than they decided to travel to the wrong place at the wrong time. Even as you’re not supposed to root for the killer in a horror movie, you don’t necessarily root against him either. Knowing a few horror buffs, I find that they enjoy watching the mindless mayhem, the constant bloodbath. In this sense, it is not too far from celebrating atrocities in the bible. You are gaining enjoyment by watching a bunch of nameless actors be killed in horrible ways. When I think of it there is almost something sick about it. Still, if any of these people witnessed a real murder I suspect they would have a different, more human reaction. So what does that tell us? Might this have something to do with the medium and the assumptions we bring when watching such a movie? Am I and others who enjoy horror movies really that heartless?

I could never picture myself reacting to the stories of the Bible with disgust or discomfort. Sometimes I’ll feel admiration for the Ancientness of the text, sometimes I’ll feel relief, sadness, and regret, sometimes I’ll feel expunged of my emotions (catharsis) when I read the text, but more often than not I simply have an intellectual response to it. It’s sort of like love; you can’t make a person feel an emotion they simply don’t feel no matter how much rationalization you offer for why they should feel that way. It works the other way too. If you really feel that much discomfort or disgust while reading no amount of intellectual discussion will sway your view. I simply just do not feel disgust or even discomfort over any element in the Bible, not in an emotional way; intellectually is another story. I don’t feel any sort of passion over Herodotus or the sexism found in Greek literature or even anti-Semitism in Shakespeare’s depiction of Shylock; I can react to it intellectually and recognize it and even morally condemn it, but I don’t feel any sort of genuine swelling of passions.

Nevertheless, as I thought about it more I have in fact felt an emotion bordering on disgust while reading, watching, and looking at art; I would probably call it righteous anger more than it is disgust or discomfort. I recognized this emotion while reading Frederick Douglas’ slave narrative, while watching Boys Don’t Cry, and I know I have felt it at other times while consuming various media. It occurs to me that these two works that I listed have a quality in common; they are all based on events that actually happened. Maybe I need it to be real for it to move me emotionally. Maybe I need it to be a more recent atrocity. Maybe it has something to do with the different assumptions I bring to different types of works. When is a story just a fun story, and when it is something more that I as an individual should be concerned about enjoying? Is it unethical to be against racism but still enjoy writers like Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad? Can I really enjoy Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and oppose anti-Semitism? Can I recognize a work containing problematic elements and still enjoy other parts of it? How much of these issues depends on how I choose to interpret an individual work? Should I feel bad that when I do recognize problematic elements I don’t always feel the same passion of disgust as my peers? What do I in fact owe my fellow human beings when consuming and producing art? These are all questions that have been on my mind lately for a variety of reasons; I invite anyone who would like to tackle some of them on their blog or here in the comments to do so.

Booklist 2009 # 26: Island of the Blue Dolphins

Despite my recent conversation that I have enjoyed a lot of the YA literature I have been reading with Steph in my comments, I have to admit Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell was okay at best. Winner of a Newbury Award, it has everything you’d expect from an award-winning children’s book: solid writing, a decent story, and a moderately developed protagonist. I think the main problem is that I am just not a big fan of island stories.

In the pacific ocean an island sits that looks like a big fish. Around it swim dolphins and other marine life. The native Indians fish the seas for food and want for nothing on their little island, until the Russians arrive with their big ships and request to hunt sea otter.

Karana’s father, the chief, allows the Russians to hunt Otter as long as they give half of their catches as payment to the tribe. The Russians reluctantly agree, but when time comes to pay fighting breaks out and the Russians flee the island on their ship. Half the tribe is wiped out, including Karana’s father.

The tribe decides to leave the island, but Karana and her brother get left behind. Soon her brother is killed by a ravage pack of dogs that roam around the island. Karana struggles to survive alone on an island where packs of wild dogs, hunger, intense loneliness, and even Tsunamis threaten to bring her to the brink of despiar. All the while she must also worry that any day the Russians who killed her father and destroyed her way of life may return.

This story is based on a true story. O’Dell wrote a fictionalized account from a diary. I suppose this is a great work to give to little girls; it is one of those rare works showing a woman surviving by herself without the help of a man, hunting and forging for food, and using her wits. Indeed, the character is hesitant at first to break her tribe’s taboo about woman not being allowed to hunt. The message here is pretty obvious: women can survive on their own without men, and you shouldn’t be afraid to challenge taboos or cultural gender norms.

The characters in those book also have given names and secret names like in the LeGuin fantasy book, A Wizard of Earthsea, that just a reviewed right before this entry. So perhaps this is a practice of Native American tribes, and LeGuin borrowed it. Overall, I enjoyed the story, but didn’t love it. It is hard to keep a conflict roaring with just one character roaming around an island.

Booklist 2009 # 25: A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin

For years I have watched the cult of Ursula LeGuin spread the word of her greatness as both the epitome of a fantasy writer and a woman writing fantasy. I have heard stories of professors praising LeGuin, while derisively announcing that her work isn’t fantasy or sci-fi because it’s too good. Now that I have finally taken the time to read a book by LeGuin I am comfortable saying that the hype lived up to the experience. LeGuin easily outshines most of her male counterparts with gorgeous prose, imaginative world-building, and an entertaining and meaningful story.

After saving his village from the invading Karg with a mist spell, many believe Ged (also known as Sparrowhawk) has the potential to be the greatest wizard in all of Earthsea. One night, however, in the school for mages in his arrogance he tampers with forbidden magic to raise the dead, which brings back a horrible creature with it, a Shadow. When he leaves the school of mages the Shadow awaits for him, chasing him across the thousands of islands of Earthsea, and hoping to take over his body. Along the way Sparrowhawk will tame a dragon, face an ancient demonic jewel, and visit uncharted parts of the world in his quest to vanquish the Shadow that he gave birth.

Fantasy excels at dealing with abstract themes. In this story we have a coming-of-age tale where Ged must overcome his pride. Ged loves knowledge, but acquiring knowledge too quickly betrays him. His short-lived rivalry with Japser, another wizard at the mage school, proves to be his undoing. The Shadow literally symbolizes his pride, the darker side of power. Only when Ged can come to terms with his own pride, his own failings, his own darker half produced by his great power, can he become a whole person. The purest characters in the novel are the ones who have mastered their pride such as Ged’s original master Ogion (who barely talks to humans anymore, but instead spends most of his time listening to and communing with nature) and his friend, Vetch. Many other examples exist of prideful characters who want to rule the world with their power and look down on others.

The magic system is extremely creative, centering around names. The characters and all the natural objects in the world have “given names” (Sparrowhawk) and their true names, Ged. To have power over an object or natural phenomenon one must uncover its true name. The wizards also can create illusions.

A Wizard of Earthsea is also celebrated for being one of the first fantasies to feature a black main character. This is not your grandfather’s fantasy with its faux medieval European setting. The thousands of islands that make up Earthsea have a Carribean feel to them; nevertheless, they stand on their own not as a bad carbon copy of the real world location, but as a believable fantastical realm with its own rules and logic.

My Girlfriend Emily has a blog

I finally convinced my girlfriend, Emily, to start a blog. It is an education blog where she reviews education books and ideas that appeal to her.

Check out her blog at: http://jumpintoteaching.wordpress.com/

Booklist 2009 # 24: Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

Frequently challenged book Bridge to Terabithia proved to be a cathartic experience that captured the trials, joys, and sorrows of childhood with strong emotional clarity. The novel surprised me because I had heard many consider it a fantasy–in fact, during my children’s literature course for library science we read it during the fantasy unit–but it really belongs to realism. The fantastical elements occur strictly in the dialogue between the two main characters.

Jesse Oliver Aarons Jr. lives with his two spoiled older sisters and two younger sisters who worship him. His overworked mother and father constantly yell at him to do all the grueling chores on the farm, while his sisters are exempt to spend the family’s meager money on clothes they don’t need and can’t afford. Despite his families poverty and his lack of joy in life, he soon develops a friendship with the new girl next door, Leslie Burke, after she beats him and all the other boys in a race. Leslie is not like the other girls at school; she is smart, sophisticated, imaginative, courageous, athletic, and willing to take on any boy in school. She brings out the best in Jesse, a side he never knew he possessed.

After school each day they head into the woods and rule over the imaginary kingdom of Terabithia where giants and fairies, kings and queens, ghosts and spirits roam. Through their friendship Jesse discovers a newfound happiness previously missing from his life, until the day a terrible tragedy strikes and threatens to ruin it all.

This is a story I suspect that would best be appreciated by someone who has lost a friend. Leslie’s death at the end proves to be an extremely poignant moment in the story. What surprised me was how affected I was by her death; any book that can move me close to tears must be doing something right.

The creatures that inhabit the fantasy world of their imagination reflects the problems and issues they face at school and home. For example, Leslie tells stories of giants invading Terabithia as a way of handling a conflict Leslie and Jessie are having with a girl who bullies them. The story celebrates fantasy as a method of negotiating the real world and real problems. I have dealt with many literary snobs who question the merits and purpose of fantasy literature; this book provides the perfect reply to such naysayers. It defends the imagination itself as an important activity for children to use in making sense of the real world. Terabithia helps Jesse overcome his grief over Leslie’s death.

Throughout the narrative Leslie stokes Jesse’s literary appetite by recommending other young adult fantasy novels. We witness how children interpret fantasy literature like C.S. Lewis’ Narnia and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. Fantasy books feed the imagination. The allusions to these other works and the characters love of them also suggests that these books deal with deeper world issues of utmost importance. For the characters, Terabithia is just as real as Narnia and Middle-Earth; it plays just as important a role in their lives and their relationships with other people.

Despite its thematic defense of fantasy and imagination, the fantasy elements are limited in scope and not the focus of the story. In fact, if judge solely as a fantasy novel it would be a rather mediocre example of the genre. The fantasy elements lack originality, consisting of a hodgepodge of stereotypical creatures ripped from the pages of a thousand other fantasy books.

Most of the narrative is realistic rather than fantastical. There is no true fantasy in the novel; the story makes it clear that Terabithia happens entirely in their heads, inspired by other fantasy novels. The scenes in Terabithia are just two friends in a woods telling each other imaginative stories about their surroundings and then playing pretend. The story is less a fantasy, and more a novel that delves into what fantasy stories can teach us about real life. This is what makes Bridge of Terabithia a fairly original “fantasy novel.” It also this reason that I believe the novel would appeal equally to those who dislike fantasy.

Booklist 2009 # 23: The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

“Sometimes darkness fell in the middle of the day. The city of Ember was old, and everything in it, including the power lines, was in need of repair. So now and then the lights would flicker and go out. These were terrible moments for the people of Ember. As they came to a halt in the middle of the street or stood stock-still in their houses, afraid to move in the utter blackness, they were reminded of something they preferred not to think about: that someday the lights of the city might go out and never come back on.”

Out of all the young adult literature I have read recently, The City of Ember was my least favorite. After seeing the movie, which follows the book closely, the whole story is a rather anti-climatic experience. Oh, certainly there are a few differences (for example, the time spent in the book talking about the main character Lina’s hobby of drawing), but most of them are minor. This led to there being no real surprises for me in the book, while lacking the kind of depth of character, language, and theme that could have replaced the suspense of experiencing a new plot. Nevertheless, the story is a lot of fun, the language if not mind-blowingly original is still decent enough writing, and the idea is a generally original take on science fiction.

A great tragedy has struck the earth so that scientists known as the enigmatic builders created a city underground to save the human race. However, this solution was meant to be only temporary; the instructions for evacuation procedures have been lost over time. The time to evacuate has long expired. The City of Ember is falling apart. Desperation spreads among the populace over the dearth of food and supplies, the black-outs grow more frequent, and everyone fears that the power may soon fail for good, leaving the city in permenant darkness. The corrupt politicians have no answers, hording prized goods in secret and growing fat on the fruits of their theft.

Lina and Doon, two childhood friends, understand the problems facing their city better than most adults. Doon wants to do everything in his power to find a way to save the city. When Lina finds a message that may have been written by the builders, she teams up with Doon to find a way to escape the City of Ember and save its residents from impending doom, even as the government works to stop them.

The story does a nice job capturing the corrupt politician, that most unholy of characters who follows human beings across different times, lands, and cultures, even into the very heart of the earth itself. It is also interesting to note that the troubles of the people above the earth parallels the city’s current troubles. Human beings build Ember as a way of surviving hard times, the fear of ultimate destruction at the hands of nuclear war, while the residents of Ember who overstay their welcome in the temporary city also fear that the end will soon arrive with the failing of the lights: we briefly hear the fears of a civilization on the brink of destruction in the beginning–presumably our own–only to return two hundred years later to find the solution to that problem transformed into a new civilization on the brink of destruction for different reasons. It is a stark reminder of how quickly civilizations can come and go, implying that the human race must continually strive for progress in order to survive, a testament reflected in the much stronger theme of Lina and Doon’s story itself as two individuals struggling against society to stake new ground that will lead to their survival. The story makes clear that Lina and Doon are to be admired because they do no sink into corruption as a response to impending doom like the mayor or Lina’s friend Lizzie or passively waiting for the government to fix the problems like most of the other residents in the city, but rather they take initiative to finding the solution to the city’s problem themselves. DuPrau demonstrates some intelligent structuring of her plot and themes, each complementing the other, making up for the fact that she is not exactly an amazing wordsmith (though, a servicable one).

The real magic, however, is in the world-building itself. A city of light in a world of perpetual darkness plays on our childhood fears and reminds us how much we take the sun for granted. A reader cannot help shivering at the thought of being left without light in the middle of the earth to rot away in the dark; the consequences to the citizens is genuinely frightening. The deeper charm of the story relies in sharing the naivette of the citizens of Ember, who do not understand the principles of electricity or photosynthesis, but know that these things work in their everyday lives. The culture fascinates with its adaptations to the limitations: recipes for canned foods (no protein from meat), vitamins as daily supplements, jobs picked randomly out of a hat based off the city’s needs, red-coated messengers who serve as the city’s primary form of communication. We even have a religion that worships the builders of the City of Embers; they sing hymns, dance, and believe that soon the builders will return to take them away from Ember and that the blackouts are merely a sign of their coming. There are so many nice and convincing touches to this world that you’re instantly drawn into the story. Most importantly we have both a male and female protagonist with which the reader can identify.

Booklist 2009 # 22: The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

“They tell you to do your thing but they don’t mean it. They don’t want you to do your thing, not unless it happens to be their thing, too. It’s a laugh, Goober, no matter what the posters say.”

Jerry Renault refuses to sell chocolates in the annual Trinity school fund-raiser. At first he is only following an assigment from the secret student-run organization known as The Vigils, but after the period of his assignment is over he continues to abstain from selling chocolates. His radical individuality initially inspires the students, but when Jerry defies The Vigils after they demand he start selling the chocolates again he finds the entire school against him. He pays a terrible price for his rebellion and individuality.

I like that this book refuses to compromise for the sake of fiction. Jerry is a genuinely sympathetic character, while his various enemies throughout the book, the manipulative Archie, the bully Emile, and the corrupt Father Leon are morally repugnant. We side with Jerry, and hope that these characters, especially Archie, have their comeuppance. But, alas, Archie wins in the end. He outsmarts all the people who resent him and want to see him fall, and Jerry barely survives being beaten to a pulp for his convictions.

One scene in particular stands out in my mind as a good example of thinking about the choices a writer makes when constructing a plot. As assigner of The Vigils, Archie invents elaborate assignments for random students chosen from the school population to complete. However, a catch exists to temper the assigners creativity; for each assignment he must select a marble from a box containing four white marbles and one black marble, if he selects the black marble he must take the place of the student assigned and complete the task himself.

In the last scene of the book, Archie forces Jerry and Emile to participate in an elaborate boxing match before the whole student body. One of the other Vigils who resents Archie and looks forward to the day Archie will experience justice pulls out the box right before the boxing match. It seems Archie’s plans will finally backfire. Various characters throughout the book have been hoping Archie will fail; it seems practically foreshadowed that an assignment will backfire, and this is the perfect moment. Many other writers I suspect would’ve taken the story in this direction, and it still would’ve been a good way to end it, if not a more obvious ending and a different message. I appreciate that Cormier doesn’t take his story in this direction, though. Justice doesn’t prevail. Archie selects a marble and the odds hold up in his favor. In fact, the novel ends with Archie bragging how nobody can take people like him down.

Jerry’s ideal to disturb the universe is admirable, but often in reality the rich and powerful and super intelligent win over mere ideals. Idealism fails in this novel. I can see many reading too much into this “message.” It is very easy to transform the story into an allegory and view this as some sort of right-wing reactionary tale bent on showing the foolishness of idealism as ever so much hippie mind-rot (after all, it is comments by hippies that set Jerry on this rebellious path in the first place). I think this would be a mistake. As I mentioned the earlier we do genuinely sympathize with Jerry, and we do hope the likes of father Leon, Emile, and Archie will experience justice. Rather than wholeheartedly denouncing idealism, then, the story reminds us that idealism has a price, and that as much as we may want it and they may deserve it, the good guys don’t always win in the end. It reminds us that life simply doesn’t work that way. The story is also fairly original in that it shows teachers can be morally corrupt as embodied in the character of Father Leon.

Booklist 2009 # 21: James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

After losing his parents in an accident poor James must live with his abusive aunts. Just when it seems like he can no longer stand the mistreatment he finds a magical giant peach filled with overgrown talking bugs. The giant peach takes him on a perilous journey across the Atlantic ocean to a new life.

My third Roald Dahl book is the least favorite of the ones I have read, although one of my frequent commentators, Verbivore, says it’s her favorite children’s book in my BFG post. I suspect one of the reasons I felt this novel was not up to the caliber of his other work was that the story possessed a less centralized conflict. In Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory it is more than just a journey through a zany candy factory, but also competition from the other children and the threat of extreme poverty provides a constant central conflict to the character. In The BFG the threat of the giants coming in at any time and swallowing up the protagonist Sophie runs throughout the narrative. In this book, the conflicts are more decentralized after the removal of the aunts in the beginning; sharks, belligerent cloud people, and other sporadic threats to the peach, but the conflict isn’t as pronounced for James in this book as it is for Charlie or Sophie in Dahl’s other books. In fact, the conflict centers on the peach’s survival more than it does on the problems James must face. James really isn’t as developed a character as Charlie or Sophie.

I suppose one could say loss of family is both the theme and internal conflict for James. The bugs become his new family, making this a story celebrating non-traditional families. It isn’t blood that makes you family, but how people treat you. His parents die, his blood relatives betray him and treat him like a slave, while his adoptive family of insects offer him the genuine comforts and warmth of a home. Nevertheless, I still prefer the more pronounced conflicts of Dahl’s other books.

For all the differences I have discussed, the book feature Dahl’s usual scenario of a young protagonist in dire straights (poverty in Wonka, kidnapping and flesh-eating giants in The BFG, and mistreatment by family in Giant Peach) only to be overcome by the protagonist’s righteousness/ingenuity/kind-heart. James saves the inhabitants of the giant peach each time the peach is threatened by thinking up quick solutions. James, as well as Dahl’s other protagonists, reminds me of a fairytale hero with their ability to think on their feet, but Dahl updates the questionable fairytale morality by indicating that cleverness and wit are not enough to survive without a good and kind-heart to temper them.

Back from the Bahamas, but my computer went boom!

I returned from an awesome vacation in the Bahamas with my family and girlfriend, but alas, my computer croaked last night. So I have no way at the moment to update my blog, except by coming here to the library, which is, shall we say, inconvenient.

For some reason my blogroll disappeared. I am not sure why, but won’t really have the time to figure it out until I get a new computer.

Read quite a bit over the vacation. Coming soon expect posts on James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier, and The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau. I’ve been on a young adult kick. So stay tuned!

Off to the Bahamas!

I am leaving for New York tomorrow, and the Bahamas on saturday. So basically there won’t be any updates for a week. Since I am leaving comment moderation on should some new soul wander in while I’m away you’ll just have to wait a week for me to approve you next Sunday.