It's Afghanistanimation, boss!

This week's book comes courtesy of Houseboy's brother, who bought it for me for Christmas.  It's this one: 

"A Thousand Splendid Suns" AKA: "A Novel by the Author of The Kite Runner," which I haven't read because it was recommended to me by too many people.  You know how when the first person recommends a book, you go "Oh, that sounds like my kind of book, I'll find that and read it."  And the second person who recommends it, you say "What a coincidence!  First Person just recommended that to me recently, but I have not read it yet, I will look into this for sure!"  And then a THIRD person recommends it, and you go "What are you trying to pull, Mister?  I already heard about this book and it is on my list!"  And by the time a fourth and fifth person recommend it, you're all "I am NOT reading the next Da Vinci Code you blathering rabble!  Fool me once, shame on you and all that."  And then you vow to never crack that book because it's obviously a conspiracy.  

Well, that kind of happened with "The Kite Runner."  So, when I got this book for Christmas I was secretly happy because it gave me a good reason to read something by the author without actually reading the apparently MONDO popular one everyone recommended* to me.  And, as it turns out, this was really good!  It is possible that The Kite Runner will be good too, so it goes back on my list.

"A Thousand Splendid Suns" follows two women through the course of Afghani history from the early 60's through about 2003.  It's one of those novels that actually teaches you a little something about history if you pay some attention, which can be a good thing.  I liked learning about the Congo in The Poisonwood Bible and about India in Midnight's Children, and this book takes a similar approach.  It reveals the complexities of change and conflict in Afghanistan through the daily events in characters' lives.  Mariam and Laila are fascinating characters with great dramatic potential in their lives, even without a series of destructive wars landing in their backyards.  It is these wars, however, that escalate their own personal struggles and eventually bring them together.  

It's a terribly wonderfully upsetting novel, with grand lanscapes of tragedy and humanity and joy and pain and all that.  If I can give just one *spoiler alert* moment, however.  I spent probably the last forty to fifty pages (and particularly the last ten or so) convinced that absolutely every character was going to die, suddenly and unexpectedly.  Or, worse, that every character but one would die, leaving one of our heroines to wander the war-torn Afghani lanscape, brittle and alone.  Let me just assure you that that does not happen.  Some people do live, as it turns out.  

So, go buy it or check it out of your library on that recommendation: not everyone dies.

----------

* Not sure if you noticed, but that makes seven times I have used a version of the word "recommend."

My Precious

So, I know Christmas and my birthday have already passed, but there was something I forgot to ask for, and I really really need.  It's these:

Don't you think the Fat Cat and the Neurotic Cat would get along well with them?  I'd need several, because I think I might squeeze the first couple to death due to their extreme adorableness.  

Redemption, Destruction, Redemption, Destruction

A little late this week, but your assignment is another C.S. Lewis, this time in fiction!  Still no lions or wardrobes to be seen, but there IS mythology, and maybe even a little allegory. 

It's called "Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold", and it's based on the classical myth of Cupid and Psyche.  For those of you who, like me, have no idea what that means, read the "Note" at the end first.  It tells you the original story in just two short pages, and then you won't spend the whole time going "When's it going to be Valentine's Day, and when is Cupid going to shoot lovers with his bow and arrow?"  Turns out, Cupid of the Latin myth has very little to do with this guy: 

and maybe a little more to do with this guy: 

*

Not that we really see much of Christianity in this book, per se, but C.S. Lewis being a capital-C Christian author and all, I figure there's at least a little something to be said for the idea that this is a story about someone coming to faith by the back way.  Maybe I'm unduly influenced by having just read his autobiography, though.

Anyway, here he takes the myth of Psyche and Cupid (look it up, already), and adds a little twist.  We hear the story from one of the supposedly jealous and destructive sisters who, it turns out, truly loved Psyche and made terrible mistakes as a result of that love.  These mistakes lead to her own and Psyche's downfall, but that's only about the middle of the story.  From there Orual (the sister) becomes a just and well-beloved queen, but is still a miserable and ugly woman, and so cannot be happy.  She writes the whole book as a condemnation of the gods, but is obliged to add a coda (that lasts 50 pages) when she discovers that she is not who she thought she was and very little was as it seemed.  She finds redemption and forgiveness exactly as soon as she knows to look for them, and then she dies.

So, now that you know how everything turns out, go read it blog bytches!  And I promise not to bring up C.S. Lewis again for awhile.  

------------

* This image was originally in a blog called Illiterate Electorate, which has the terrible form to put every damn post on the front page, so I had to scroll through and wait for my computer to download about 20,000 election-related photos before I found the post it appeared in, and damned if I still have no idea what the flip the picture actually is.  I cropped it and re-posted it here because when I tried to just link it, it turned out huge and I didn't feel like dealing with html today.  

Things to Do Before I'm 30: The Impossible List

I never actually made one of these lists before I turned 30, and in fact I never thought 30 was such a bad thing to turn, so I haven't been on the ball with getting nervous and angsty and upset about my birthday.  Now that it happened, though, I figure I should act my age and have some kind of crisis over the things I meant to accomplish.  So here's a list I came up with after the fact, of things I will now feel bad about not having done already.

1.  Swim with the dolphins.  I wanted to do this when I was a kid, but my mom said it was too expensive, and besides, don't you think the dolphins deserve to be left alone?  Before I was 30 I could have ignored her, but now I'm too old anyway because it's a well-known fact that dolphins attack old people.

2.  Become a gymnast.  Somewhere around puberty I discovered that I have no hand-eye coordination and terrible balance.  I should have worked on that more.

3.  Commit the perfect murder.  I have it all planned out.  Maybe I can still do this one.

4.  Wear rubber leggings to a club and start one of those dances where everyone circles around you because you're so awesome and you teach them a new move and everyone buys you things because you're so cool.

5.  Seven hotdogs and seven beers in seven innings.  You heard me.

6.  Get on the Late Show with David Letterman.  Because that man is sexy with a capital SEX.

7.  Be the first woman to... whatever.  First, I wanted to be president until I found out that presidents are boring.  Then I wanted to be the first female Major Leaguer.  See #2.

8.  Learn to make a souffle.  Have it comically deflate.  Sit on the floor of my kitchen and cry.

9.  Beat Houseboy in Trivial Pursuit.  The synapses are only getting less firey with age, not more. 

10.  Raise a pig for the slaughter, but at the last minute change my mind and go on a long road trip with it that ends in tragedy when he dies of pig old age.  

...

Like Kurasawa I make mad films

Ok, I don't make films.  But if I did, they'd have a samurai.  And Brad Pitt.  And ideally a culminating scene with some sort of water dance by amphibious bunny rabbits set to Led Zeppelin music.  This might be why my screenplays never get picked up.

So, anyway, your Movie of the Week was going to be Rashomon, but then I didn't watch Rashomon, but accidentally sealed it up in its Netflix envelope anyway and had to carefully retrieve it without tearing the envelope because I don't have another one because I'm sending back Scratch and also the Pianist, even though I haven't watched it yet because I've decided I get the whole Holocaust thing.  Have you noticed that there are FOUR World War II movies out right now?  That seems excessive.

Anyway, instead you get to hear about a NEW movie, which is being called "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."  This is one of those movie theater type movies, which I got to see because it was my birthday yesterday, and Houseboy felt bad that I was thirty years old and still not best friends with Brad Pitt, even though that was on my "To Do Before I'm 30" list.  More on that list another time.

For now, you get a slightly obscure and subtle-ified review of Benjamin Button, because I don't want to have to do the "Spoiler Alert" nonsense.  So, it's a movie about how Brad Pitt is aging backwards and is star-crossed with Cate Blanchett, which I imagine Angelina Jolie is rather upset about.  As was revealed to me ahead of time, the old people makeup is really quite good, and I didn't spend very much time at all going "Wow that old people makeup looks good," because I just got used to it and paid attention to the actual movie.  What distracted me more actually, was the very young Brad Pitt, because dude is like 45 now, so other than the poor lighting I really have no idea how they made him look about 17 at one point.  I was also occasionally distracted when he rode his motorcycle or went sailing, and I blacked out because he's a hottie-cake.  

As to the actual plot and whathows of the movie, I give it about an 8 1/2 out of ten.  There was a particular part where I particularly disliked the way things went, and was pulled out of the suspension of disbelief that is obviously very important to a movie such as this.  But, other than that, I enjoyed it immensely.  I would agree with the director (where ever I saw that) that the actual premise of aging backwards isn't really the most interesting part of it, though that made it more than just another sweeping romantic epic like "The English Patient" or some other movie I haven't seen.  It gives it a little bit of a twist and an unusual edge, though not quite as much as, say "Lars and the Real Girl," which I have seen.  

Also, it's not giving TOO much away to say that I want to be buried with a jelly jar full of buttons.

..