Favorite Book With Magic

Our book this week, Trial By Fire, is all about magic.  So this week, we're telling you our favorite book with magic in it.

I feel like the Percy Jackson series is one that just doesn't get enough props.  It came out during the HP craze (2005-2009 and the last HP was 2007) so it got a little lost in that in terms of being dealt it's fair share.

That's not to say it's not famous in it's own right.  According to NYTimes.com, Percy Jackson (which is slot 8 on the best sellers list this week) has spent 340 weeks on the NY Times best seller list.  Not bad for a book and longer than everything else on the list in its category, including The Hunger Games and Divergent.

The books incorporate the Greek myths in awesome ways, and probably one of the more original ways that I've seen.  All these kids, ranging from about 12-17 years of age, are all demi-gods.  And, until they come of age, they're all in danger of being killed.  It's pretty dangerous to be the son or daughter of a God, and the camp they stay at is the only thing that protects them.  Percy has five books of adventures, all of which are fantastic.

But, I think for me, one of the best things is that book four and five are probably my FAVORITE of the series.  Too often the end of the series ends up being the worst, but that's not so for Percy.  The end is what's the best part.

The obvious choice, for me, would be Harry Potter. But since we talk about that series a lot, I'm going to skip that as my real favorite book(s) with magic, and tell you about...

The Magic School Bus series is just the COOLEST, right? I mean, let me count the ways. First, they're available at the annual event that makes nerdy kids like me flip out like early Christmas: the Scholastic book fair. Then, you have Ms. Frizzle, the world's coolest teacher (no offense, every teacher I ever had). She actually reminds me a lot of my 2nd grade teacher, Ms. Merrill, who dressed up as characters and did wacky things to get the reluctant learners to participate and just make everything even more fun for those of us who were already excited to be at school.

But let's address the "magic" part of these books, since that's why I'm talking about them today. You know how popular Bill Nye is? It's because he took real, scientific fact and made it fun and interesting. That's what these books do. But instead of camera tricks and sound effects and regular segments like "Consider the Following," these books have what seems to be at least a mildly sentient, morphing school bus that can survive extreme environments, including inside the human body, at the bottom of the sea, outer space, and the inside of a volcano! I distinctly remember one book (I think the dinosaurs one?) where a new student joined the class, and she kept being skeptical, talking about how the bus can't do that, and they should all be dead, and Ms. Frizzle was a lawsuit waiting to happen, and everyone else just brushes her off because (1) they're obviously all fine, (2) they've totally done things like this before, and (3) SCIENCE!!! Magic in the name of science is the best kind of magic, in my opinion.

Retelling Stories

This week, we're reading The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor.  Beddor took the story of Alice in Wonderland and repurposed it, changed it.  Really, he turned it on its head and created his own story out of it.

Lots of authors have used a story as a starting point, and refashioned it into something new.  Usually, it's fairy tales that get retold in new ways.  We reviewed Cinder not that long ago (and by "not that long ago" I clearly mean a year ago... ), where Meyer took the Cinderella story, servant meets prince and falls in love, and transforms it into something futuristic.  Cinderella is a cyborg, half metal, half human, in a world far into our future.  There are aliens and hovercrafts and constant space travel and let's not forget plague and a couple more world wars than we, the reader, know about.

Myths often get retold, or told from different perspectives.  If you remember, way back when, one of the first books that we reviewed on this blog was a myth retelling.  The Penelopiad told the story of Odysseus' wife and her suitors.  But we hear a lot from Penelope's maids, because they're kind of the tragedy in the story.

You know who else did a retelling of a myth?

Where can you find this wonderful piece of work?  

Why, RIGHT HERE!

OH MY GOSH!  IS THAT MY BOOK?!  HOW IN THE WORLD DID IT GET INTO THIS POST!!!  (Ok, so I'm kind of shamelessly plugging this.)  BUT that doesn't change the fact that I took the myth of Cassandra and set it in modern day, taking all of those characters and repurposing them into something new.

So what makes a retelling different from, say, fan fiction.  Well, for one, retellings take characters that are out of copyright/never were copyrighted to begin with.  Yes, they're someone else's characters, but the original owner has been dead so long, no one is around to collect the money anymore.

Also, a lot of times, while authors may start with an idea, a story, by the time the book is done, these characters are completely different than their originals.  Unlike fan fiction, people like Baddor and Meyer aren't looking to copy the original character, just give their readers some base knowledge for the story.

Favorite Book With a Prophecy

There are a lot of books out there that involve prophecies.  Some of them, let's face it, most of them, are fantasy books, giving you a prophecy to save the world.  Rhapsody has one such prophecy (in fact, I think the second book is even called "Prophecy")  So, today, we're talking about our favorite books with a prophecy in them.

I really like the Percy Jackson series.  And, even better, there's not one prophecy, there's a billion.  They have an oracle in an attic that constantly gives prophecies, in fact, she gives one every time someone goes on a quest.  They're required to go see the oracle before they leave on their quest.

It's a fun series and it teaches a LOT about mythology, but in a fun way, which is great for a kids book.  It's a perfect mix between educational and just plain awesome.  There's a lot of twists and turns and crazy characters.  Some characters you love, others you can't stand, and still more you just feel sorry for.

If you're big into mythology, you should pick them up and read them.

This is probably no surprise. I choose Harry Potter as my favorite book with a prophecy.

I love the idea that, had Voldemort not assumed one minor thing about a prophecy (from Sybill Trelawney, someone who seems like such a minor, unimportant, crazy side character but who happens to turn out to be extremely important from the outset) the series might have been named after Neville Longbottom instead.

Review Me Twice- The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

I'm not really sure what I was expecting out of this book.  I guess something that was more epic than the epic tale.  Something a little darker because, after all, it IS Margaret Atwood and The Handmaid's Tale is just all sorts of epic and wonderful (and you should read it if you haven't and maybe even one day we'll review it if we're so inclined, but not right now.)  However, the book just didn't do for me what I thought it would.

Now, that's not to say it wasn't well written.  Much as I expected, Miss Atwood delivered a wonderfully woven tale with the most elegantly crafted sentences and a vocabulary that titillates.  The story is paced well and those are all things that I like.

I also like that we see Penelope in the underworld.  I like that it's a post-humus thing and she is in the Elysium fields, talking to us about this tragic event in her life and everything that went along with it.  And, for a character, Penelope is pretty well fleshed out.  We can see her obvious jealousies (she practically turns green when she sees Helen of Troy) and we can see that she's telling this story to deflect doubt off of her.  She's trying to get us to believe that it's not her fault.

That's where my favorite part comes in.  We have the "Chorus" which is the 12 maids who, essentially, talk in unison.  But they tell us all the dirty little secrets that Penelope isn't telling us.  But is she not telling us, or are the maids just gossips?  Because, after all, she's cultivated them to be so.  But so much doesn't add up about Penelope's story.  She's constantly trying to make herself look like the good guy, and innocent and how she's SO sorry for what happened (this is about the time my YA literature professor would interject the term unreliable narrator.)  I really like that Atwood used the Maids to cast so much doubt on Penelope, this character who, through all of history has always been viewed as the faithful, reliable wife.

But the book didn't really click with me much past that and I think a big reason was because I just didn't find Penelope all that interesting.  She was kind of insipid and whiny and "God, Helen always gets all the attention and why can't anyone ever see just how terrible she is?"  It really got on my nerves and I feel like, when the person is narrating, that's the last thing that you want to have happen.

Bottom line: 3 out of 5.
What an interesting book. It's not like anything I've read before, except... it is. The format is similar to that of The Odyssey, complete with chorus sections interspersed (mostly done by the maids), which is a nice touch on Margaret Atwood's part. It's a rewrite of a myth I've heard several times before. And I've read things narrated by a protagonist I know to be speaking from the afterlife. But all of these things combined made for a new-ish reading experience that I really enjoyed.

The story is somehow compelling, even though Penelope basically tells you the whole thing right at the beginning, by recapping the myth we all know (or could learn quickly by reading the introduction). Even though I knew what would happen next, I kept finding myself propelled through the pages to find out... what would happen next.

Several of my English classes in undergrad discussed "unreliable narrators." We studied these characters in stories where, at the end, it turns out the narrator was hallucinating, or dreaming, or suffered from mental illness, or was trying to convince or persuade or lie the whole time. I get one of these feelings from Penelope, and I like it. I really like unreliable narrators. They keep things interesting. And in the end, it doesn't really matter if they're right or not, because they've told a story. (It's up to you, the audience, to decide how seriously you'll take their story.)

I would have very much enjoyed reading this when I read the original myth, because it offers such an interesting alternative perspective on the stories we all accept as the myth of Odysseus and everyone around him.

The only people I wouldn't recommend this to are those who really genuinely dislike the Odysseus stories (because that would taint the whole book for those readers). Otherwise, give it a shot.

Myths: Things Need Not Have Happened To Be True

"Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot."

(Neil Gaiman, The Sandman)

I say that quotation a lot. But it's so true. Look at myths, for example. It doesn't really matter if there was ever a man named Odysseus who married a woman named Penelope and fathered a son named Telemachus and sailed off to have grand adventures involving gods and goddesses and a Cyclops and sirens. The story is the important thing.

There are lessons to be learned, emotions to be experienced, and information to be remembered through stories and myths like these. The details of the facts are entirely secondary.

Let's use Odysseus as our example. At one point in his adventures, Odysseus and his men encountered the giant Cyclops, Polyphemus. They were poking around in his cave, trying to figure out who lived there, when he came back with his sheep and blocked them into the cave with a giant rock. Polyphemus then proceeds to eat two of Odysseus's men for each meal until Odysseus hatches a plan. He gets Polyphemus particularly drunk, tells him his name is "no one" and Polyphemus (in a display of terrible rudeness) says he will eat "no one" last. When Polyphemus passes out, Odysseus blinds his with a flaming stake. (Polyphemus cries out to his fellow cyclopes that "no one" has blinded him, and they think he's a drunk idiot.) Odysseus and his remaining men tie themselves to the undersides of Polyphemus's sheep, and escape when he lets them out to graze. (To his credit, Polyphemus did feel the sheeps' backs, to be sure the men weren't riding out on them.) Odysseus's mistake was, when they got safely to the ship, calling back and announcing that he was not "no one" and was, in fact, Odysseus, the King of Ithaca. This is how Poseidon (Polyphemus's father and god of the sea) knew who to punish, and Odysseus had a heck of a time getting home.

Penelope indirectly suggests, in The Penelopiad, that perhaps instead of a giant Cyclops, her husband had in fact brawled with and/or tricked a one-eyed innkeeper, and the story-tellers who sang his praises exaggerated the encounter in order to flatter Penelope and suggest that she is better by association with such a brave and clever man as Odysseus. The truth is unimportant; the implications are why the story is still being told two thousand years later.

But who really cares whether Odysseus tricked a cyclops or an innkeeper? The point is that the story is interesting, the solution was clever, and the moral is one that the wise will heed. (Something about modesty or keeping your mouth shut at the right times or something like that.)

Favorite Myths

I’ve never been a big fan of Greek or Roman mythologies. They’re all pretty good, but after I get through a few of them, I just see marble statue after marble statue, and all the names blur together, and I get bored. Nothing against the Greeks or Romans… It’s just not my thing. So I’m drawn more to other mythologies, like Japanese, or Egyptian, or Norse.

While they’re important to know in order to understand an entire mythology, I typically don’t much care for creation myths; they’re usually all so similar. But I really like the Maori creation myth. It goes like this:

Ranginui (or Rangi) and Papatuanuku (or Papa) were the sky father and the earth mother. They were locked in a tight, loving embrace. They had several children, all male, who had to live in the dark space between them. These sons really wanted to see what it was like in the light. One of them suggested killing their parents, but another said it would be a better decision to push them apart; Rangi could go above them and live in the sky, and Papa could remain below them and nurture them. So all the sons tried to push their parents apart, but none succeeded until Tāne (god of forests & birds) lied on his back and pushed with his legs, instead of with his hands as his brothers had done.

There’s a war among the brothers after that, and much ado about creating things as we know them now, but the part I particularly like is that Rangi still weeps for Papa (rain).

There’s an additional myth that ties in here. Tāne made a woman out of red clay (Hine-ahuone) and they made a daughter, Hine-ata-uira (she has other names, too), and Tāne married her. When Hine-ata-uira got curious about who her father was, and discovered that he was her husband, she was ashamed, and ran away to the spirit-world. Tāne tried to follow her, but she told him to go back, because she was going to be the goddess of the underworld. Tāne would care for their children on earth until it was time for them to go to her.

I was actually always interested in Greek Mythology, but it was usually the minor myths that interested me.  I really didn't care that much about what Zeus and Hera were doing but I thought it was pretty neat that Narcissus was so full of himself that he fell in love with his reflection.  This was right after he rejected Echo's love for him.  It's all very TRAGIC, my dear.

However, my most favorite myth has to be the myth of Cassandra.  (Really, was there any surprise?)  Despite the fact that I share the name with dear Cassandra, she really brings back the age old "don't go disrepectin' dem gods."  Apollo gave her the gift of sight at an early age and nurtured that gift in her.  Then, when she got older, he wanted to sleep with her (as gods usually did when it came to humans.)

However, Cassandra stood her ground and told him no (which is what I respect about her.)  But gods didn't take kindly to mere mortals telling them no.  Especially when they had bestowed gifts upon these mortals.  So, Apollo told her that she would be able to foresee the future but no one would believe her predictions.

This happened frequently in her life.  She foretold the fall of Troy and, well, we all know what happened with that one.  She also saw Aeneid starting Athens but he didn't think he would do that either.

Inevitably, Agamemnon rapes her and takes her on as a consort and takes her home with him.  Unbeknownst to him (despite the fact that Cassandra told him), Agamemnon's wife was sleeping around and when he came back, she killed both Agamemnon and Cassandra.

The story is really awful and tragic but, at the same time, I like that Cassandra stands up for herself despite how terribly it ends up for her.  And, you know... she has my name.  She was also described as the second most beautiful woman in the world.  So you figure she was probably a pretty awesome lady despite the short straw she drew.

Myths in the Everyday

Mythology has become a little bit of an interesting thing over the years.  Someone mentions it and you immediately think Greek and Roman gods and the stories they are associated with.  But it doesn't really end there. That mythology, and even things like Norse and Egyptian mythology, has permeated our everyday lives in ways we don't even realize.

For instance, people often use the phrase, "that's a little narcissistic."  We know that it refers to a person's vanity.  But did you know that it comes from the myth of Narcissus, a man so proud and completely in love with his looks that he fell in love with his own reflections?

Or what about if I were to say that "gummy bears are my Achilles heel?"  Commonly we know that it refers to a weak spot in our personalities, but the phrase actually comes from Greek Mythology.  Achilles was a great warrior, completely unbeatable because he had been dipped in the river Styx by his goddess mother.  Except for his heel, the place where she had to hold him by.  So it was the only place on his body that he could be hurt.  Even now, the tendon just above the heel of your foot is referred to as you "Achilles Heel."

I could go on for days ("Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" refers to the Trojan horse, "A Herculean effort" goes back to Hercules and his labors) but I would probably bore you before I got through even half of them.

Now we find Norse mythology showing up in pop culture.  One of the biggest movies of the year is based around Norse mythology: The Avengers.  Good old Thor and his friends and family are all Norse gods.

(Ok, so maybe part of me just wanted Chris Hemsworth in my blog.  Really, who wouldn't?)

Believe it or not, Marvel didn't just pull Thor and Loki and all their companions out of thin air.  They're all actually based on myths that exist.  The original creators of Thor just took an age old idea and ran with it and now we, the general public, a reaping the wonderfully (and might I add, incredibly good looking) benefits.

Mulan included Chinese mythology.  The Mummy included Egyptian mythology.  Even the Power Rangers had some mythology in it.

Now, I'm not saying you should use all these things as academic sources for your papers.  Obviously there's been a lot of creative license taken for the story.  I'm just showing you that mythology is not something that is stuffy and old and never used.  It's constantly in our lives, culture and speech.

Mythology Monday

So we're not actually changing the name to Mythology Monday, but we are giving a little bit of a mythology lesson this week. (And by "we," Cassy really means she, because for all the mythology I learned in 19 years of formal education, I remember very, very little of it. So I'm more on the learning side than the teaching side of things this week, which is fun!) We're going to be reviewing The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood at the end of the week.  The book is based off of the myth of Penelope and Odysseus.  Atwood actually has become quite fascinated with Penelope's version of the tale and has decided to tell her own version.

"But what's the tale of Penelope and Odysseus?" you might ask.  (As I did.) Well, I'm so glad you did!  Because I'm going to tell you.  Sure, we've all heard of Odysseus (went off to fight the Trojan war for ten years, pissed Poseidon off right at the end and so it took him yet another ten years to get home.  Talk about your bad luck.)

However, right before Odysseus left, he had a wife and a kid and then bam.  Left for twenty years (so his kid barely knew him and then was an adult when his father returned.)  While no one really bothered Penelope too much during the Trojan War (after all, it was a big deal and she was a fairly intelligent woman), when Odysseus didn't show up after it was over, everyone presumed him dead.  And then Penelope was bombarded by suitors.  They came into her home, ate her food and drank her wine.  As usual, no one thought a woman could rule, so clearly she had to be married.  

But Penelope never did marry.  In fact, she used every trick in the book to hold them off, including making a burial shroud everyday and then unraveling it at night.

"But why ever would she do that, Cassy?  It seems so counterproductive."

Well, yes, but that was the point.  She told her suitors that once it was finished, she would choose a suitor.  Ergo, if she never finished it, she would never have to choose a suitor.  This went on for three long years before one of her maids discovered her and ratted her out to those pesky suitors.

Odysseus finally came home and killed all the suitors (mind you, because of another trick from his wife) and they were happily reunited.  But not before he killed twelve of her maids.

Now, the idea is that the maids had either betrayed her (ok, that seems reasonable) or slept with the suitors (excuse me, what?).  Atwood has never really liked this explanation for the maids.  She's always felt that there was something more that went on with them.  And what did Penelope think of the whole situation?  Her husband was hardly faithful in all those years that he was missing, yet she was unendingly faithful to him, only to have him come home and kill her staff.

That's just a little back story on this week's book.  Stay tuned for our review of The Penelopiad on Friday!