Conspiracy to Murder

I had the weirdest most stressful nightmare... I dreamt that some of my male friends murdered a girl and hid her body.

What a horrible thing to see a person you love doing! But not so much, as in most dreams, what you "know" is not quite what is real in the waking world. I was at a party, and parts of the setting looked simply like any garden, parts like the old garden at my grandparent's house which always features prominently in my dreams. I knew the guys at the party were "my friends" but I could honestly not recognize many of them. I recognized my exboyfriend whose nickname prompts me to dub him C. and one of my friends from high school, an artist who I very much admire, let's call him S. Both of them are among the nicest people I've met and neither murdered anyone... even in my dream. They were just at this fateful party.

I remember walking around and seeing a group of these guys talking and chopping something up with an axe. Next day I was to hear them discussing the incident and was able to put two and two together and figure out that what they were chopping up was the body of a young woman. She had died as a result of a stupid party accident, was the vague idea I had in my dream.

I remember being furious at them, absolutely FURIOUS. I remember a bunch of "adults" were discussing the event and had the typical justification of "let's not ruin the lives of these young men" and I was LIVID. My father was among these parents and miscellaneous adults and that made me particularly hateful of the whole reaction.

I got into a fight with one of my friends. I think I got the stressful feeling from this bit, but also a bit of exhilaration, because I knew that what I was doing was the RIGHT thing. I told this friend that what he and the others had done was an EVIL thing and that I wanted no part in it. I took my stuff and left.

I was very afraid in the dream but also so angry I managed to avoid the fear. It turned into one of those dreams where you are running from someone. I knew my friends knew I knew... They knew I disapproved and would go to the police even if what I had seen was not very clear and even when I really didn't know quite what happened. So I was running because I was logically afraid of someone trying to do something to get me to shut up.

I remember how determined I was and I remember, strangely enough, thinking that they couldn't scare me! I lived alone! They had no leverage over me! (I have no idea why this had any sort of relevance to my dream predicament)

I woke up just after sitting down someplace and meeting someone who was to play the role of good Samaritan. They would help me out. It would be okay.

Another friend of mine appeared in the dream as well, a girl we'll call Y. She appeared when I was very angrily throwing rocks at the house where the party had taken place. She came out the backdoor, which also looked very much like the back door of my grandparents' old house. She wanted to tell me she very much supported me leaving and calling the police and I told her very emphatically that she should come with me! She couldn't stay here! It was dangerous!

For one reason or another she wouldn't come with me, but she told me what the stupid party accident had been about. The guys had made this girl climb into an air vent.... because she was small and thin? For a bet? As a dare? I don't know, but she had died there and they had panic and somehow they were very much responsible.

I think Y had decided to stay at the house because the young girl had a baby and neither of us had any idea where the baby was or who had kept it.

At the moment it was a maddening and stressful and outrageous... but I woke up half-relieved, that I had done the right thing and not let my friends get away with murder... even my oniric friends...

Dream Libraries

(Transcribed from my iPhone voice notes)

I dreamt of a huge library. I think in my dream it was the Library of Alexandria or something like that. It was hidden underground and we were going there through an expedition... It looked a little like the Disney movie Atlantis.

There were lots of boxes and chests, colorful containers of great secrets. Eventually I had to fight... Well, no, it wasn't me. The main character of my dream had to fight some sort of Satan-like figure. There were lots of motifs in the dream that looked kabbalistic. The main character character of the dream was like an angel of wisdom, who started out as a human being, incarnate... she had to wake up to this identity of hers.

There were tarot motifs and it reminded me a little of the movie the Ninth Gate.

In the end, she had to take all the objects that had survived the fight, the disaster. They were huge chests full of things. The chests opened like puzzles (in real life I have a wooden box that opens like this). And it was not just that these huge chests were full of books and scrolls, or even full of magical things... they were like doors, providing access to other dimensions. They were magical themselves.

And one of the chests... someone was going to have to become the guardian of this chest. Little by little they were going to have to release the information in this chest. The way it opened, this chest... this puzzle... it could take you to different places, if you opened it correctly or in different ways.

When we opened it, people who weren't the guardians of this chest, it took us to see a place that looked like the fields of Elysium... and there was an enemy of ours there (must be all the Saint Seiya I've been watching lately).

The guardian of this chest was Polly, my cat, and she had to learn how to use it and teach me how to use it myself. And it seemed like I wasn't the first person who had to... well, once more, not me, but rather the main character of the dream... The main character was not the first person who would have this role, as guardian of all this information, all this knowledge, but rather, it was something to be inherited, something to be remembered.

There was a sort of battle in the dream, and we lost a lot of this informaton, of the chests and treasures carried by the expedition. And it was a tragedy, because so much knowledge was lost. We had lost these things because of that devil-like figure, this dream-Satan who kept trying to trip us up.

It seemed like a sort of illumination, like reaching an awareness of one-self. The protagonist of the dream had to realize that she was the guardian of all this knowledge, all these magical things, these talismans, little by little. She had to wake up, little by little, to her role as the person chosen to take care of all of this.

(Told you I had a cat puzzle box)

Review: A Brief History of Time

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I used to look at this book and think that it was written for very smart people who understood math... which I obviously didn't. That's why I never set out to read it. I'm a literature student, and I naively thought that science, especially science as "complicated" as cosmology, was not meant for me. But recently I've had to do some research on astrophysics related stuff and I decided to give myself a chance and just try and read the damn thing. It was popular science book, so it should be simple enough?

HA!

Well, half of it I understood and and the half that I did I probably misinterpreted totally, BUT it was incredibly interesting and I learned so much! Even though somehow I feel LESS smart after reading it, I'm very glad I took the chance. As per the advice of some people, I'm going to be watching documentaries on some of the topics that were most difficult for me; mainly the chapters on quantum and particle physics. I flew through the chapters on black holes, they were super interesting and not quite as hard to wrap my head around.

I'll probably have to read the whole thing again with a pencil in hand and three other books, but I don't regret starting my research with this. If nothing else it taught me that even though I'm bad at math and understand half of what I read, there ain't no such a thing in science as "not for me".

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Review: The Virgin Suicides

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Having been a suicidal teenage girl, being friends with lots of suicidal girls, still suffering from depression... this is a strange book to me. I remember watching and being fascinated by the movie. I loved the book's prose, what lots of people have written about it, how evocative, hazy and sensual it is.

But while reading I kept remembering that it was written by a man. Someone here wrote that the book is more the story of the boys watching the Lisbon girls than of the girls themselves and I believe that. I like those sort of books though, the ones written by men romanticizing and idolazing women, showing us how they view us as incomprehensible but tantallizing creatures.

I guess that's why Sofia Coppola wanted to direct it, thought at times the sheer distance and bafflement of the boys is faintly offensive. Girls locked up in a house and not permitted to go to school or get a job or find any way out of their situation and you wonder why they killed themselves? No shit Sherlock...

I thought the most real bit of insight the boys had on the Lisbon girls was when they realized Lux had made advances on them only to give her sisters time to die in peace... I wonder why the author let Mary live only to kill herself again? I would have let her live, the way the author let Lux have sex: a reminder to the narrators that their mythical suicidal virgins weren't as suicidal or as virginal as they wanted to imagine them to be.

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The Garden and the Riddle

As always I've abandoned this blog for the last four years. Half of it is because I had a horrible anxiety crisis that left me BARELY hanging on for a couple of years, with just enough energy to work and finally finish my studies (all I need to do now is finish my damn thesis!)... but also because said anxiety made it supremely DISTRESSING to attempt the introspection required by journaling. I HATED having to think of my life and avoided it when at all possible.

I got very into audiobooks because they let me exist without having to face the silence. Even music wasn't cutting it anymore...

I'm feeling better now. I feel like this last month of August I took the first REAL break from working I've taken since 2011 when I decided to work on my degree again. Last year I managed to finish the last bit I needed to graduate other than thesis writing. But I was in a financial hellhole since my job wasn't really paying me anymore. There was a huge earthquake in Mexico City and I felt very much adrift and uncertain...

For the first time in years I have savings and was able to take a LONG vacation where I didn't have to work at all and where I could just read whatever I pleased and draw whenever it stuck my fancy.

I hadn't realized how much I needed it. I needed it so badly that I'm finally ready to start journalling again. I needed something to jumpstart the journaling so I decided to start writing down my dreams again, as long as they seem at all interestin. I might eventually just decide to do a physical dream journal, the bullet journal was fun.

This is what I dreamed last night:

I dreamt of a girl who was very beautiful. She seemed wealthy too, a real catch. The sort of girl who is always being pursued by someone in a shakespearean play. She lives in a garden she was building herself. She seems to have servants, handmaidens... friends, certainly someone who could serve as a confidant. She is hiding but doesn't know why? There is a pond and flowers and trees in her garden but she shares it with others. There are animals in her garden: tame iguanas (probably because I just saw a couple of them during my holiday), her pond has fish in it and of course there are kittens frolicking around, though I am not sure of these last.

She is speaking with someone, gossiping, beneath a canopy of trees when she sees a man come inside her gate, over the cobblestone path.

She knows this man.

He is tall and very handsome and he is looking for her. She greets him warmly... too warmly. They have been intimate before and she wishes to be intimate again, but he stops her kindly. He hasn't come to see her for this but on behalf of someone else. Is it his lord? Yes and no. Certainly the person he speaks for is important but I sense they are more equals than not and that this man is doing the lord a favor, because he knows her. He comes with a marriage proposal for her.


She has never seen this lord, she much prefers the man instea. But the man says: Marry him and he can make you a garden just as beautiful as this one and you won't have to share it. Somehow this is important to her; after all the work she has put in here she is loath to leave her home, but a garden she won't have to share sounds lovely. She is intrigued. The lord lives far away though... in the moon? It gives me a sort of Sailor Moon vibe, with a beautiful, powerful home where none should be possible. Her new garden would always be among the dark and the stars, no beautiful blue sky, though a night garden has its own peculiar charm...

The man brings her another token from her suitor: a riddle! And this truly catches her attention with an element of vanity. This lord has sought her out not for her beauty or her wealth but for her intelligence. Somehow this riddle is as much a gift as a cry for help. The implication is that if she marries him and solves this riddle for him, she will set him free. From a curse? From a promise? It's not terribly clear.

There is a sense that her suitor cannot appear to her until she has solved the riddle. I have been reading about Eros and Psyche and might have gotten the idea from them. They are also a love triangle like Tristan, Iseult and King Mark, in that the girl much prefers the envoy to the suitor, but also like Cesario, Olivia and Orsino. Yet this suitor is smarter than the other two, for he offers her gifts that will interest her as well as flatter her and that show her he sees her clearly for what and who she is.

I don't remember the riddle, but it was long and very beautiful. It had sumbols, letters, and numbers. The symbols turned into letters, turned into numbers. They were both at once. It seemed to be an animated riddle rather than a spoken one, appearing on a screen... but also like a shadow play. I remember the last two digits of my year of birth appeared, 8 and 6.

The girl was very much intrigued and would consider the suit.

Though kind to her friends, her confidants and the envoy, she reminded me in her intelligence and beauty and vivacity of the more insolent and headstrong version of a character I am working on right now.

I woke up as she considered the marriage proposal.

Review: Assassin's Fate

Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I can't be objective with this book.

Maybe with all the other books of the Realm of the Elderlings series I was able to measure and consider things carefully. I still think the best are the Liveship Traders books. They have a tight storyline, well divided among it's ensemble cast, where every character finds a satisfying ending, even when they don't get what they wanted.

The book that had made me cry most horribly was Fool's Fate. That was the book that made me utterly fall in love with Fitz and Beloved's relationship. I still remember the final scenes and all my favorite dialogues. I still hold it as an example of how to write a selfless character or deep-hearted love, even when it's unrequited.

At first I wasn't happy with the ending. I never liked Molly and Fitz together because of how troubled and sometimes even abusive the relationship was. On both sides. But I read those books when I was in college, sometimes during class when I should have been doing something else. Since then I have grown and matured and somehow it seems so probable and natural that Fitz might want something that isn't exactly what he needs. People don't always love the person who loves them most or best, but we can't control it. It is to the Fool's credit that he accepts this and let's Fitz live the life he wants, even if it's a boring life and a settled one. I cried about as much when the Fool left as I did when he died. Their parting left me bitter and melancholic.

But this book broke my heart.

I was expecting it. I had feared it. Bee was a protagonist now and we didn't absolutely need Fitz alive for the end. But I didn't think she would dare. If nothing else I'll take to heart Hobb's cold blood when killing characters. It wasn't a massacre the way Martin's deaths are, but she killed exactly who she needed to kill, no more, no less.

People say Kennitsson wasn't exactly necessary, but I felt for him and I was as angry and proud of his death as I was for Fitz and the Fool. I imagine Etta and Wintrow and Sorcor and the promise that Paragon Ludluck's life represented, somehow a life free of cruelty to bring light to his father's dark history, and I think only such a life would have been fair exchange for a dragon's rebirth.

There was nothing fair about how Fitz died.

I was furious. I read all night trying to get to the end of the book and prove that he couldn't really die like this, so painfully, so soon. I cried from 8 am to 11 am. I cried because Fitz deserved his rest and a clean death, to fall asleep by Molly's side and never wake up. Fitz deserved never to have to leave a child of his yet again.

But Fitz so rarely got what he deserved in life, why should he get it in death?

This was as tight a book in its own way as the Liveship ones were. The dying messenger was there so we could know how Fitz would die. Kennitsson was there so Paragon would live.

And the Fool was back, so that he and Fitz could be together in the stone wolf, the way they had never been when alive.

It was bitter and not satisfying. I felt a horrible dread to think that one could love someone so deeply and desire a life with them and know they would never be loved back and in the end have to settle for an ugly death and an eternity in the memory stone. But Fitz and Beloved's lives were never about living them, but about giving them away for a greater purpose.

I felt cheated and heartbroken and desolate... but I also felt vindicated. This book did not end with the hope and happiness of Fool's Fate, but it ended with a future. Bee's future and the world's future, both bought with the lives and suffering of two of the characters I have loved most in all my life.

I hope you hunt well Stone Wolf.

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Review: Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I grew up in the nineties, which means I was a huge Jurassic Park freak. I was the original dinokid. And I still love the movie like mad and watch it every time I get.

I'm not going to say the book was a disppointment because it actually wasn't. It was exciting and interesting and the dinosaur info was awesome! What I love about reading the book of a movie is how much more extra information you get on the setting and characters. I got that. But what I think was lacking in Crichton that Spielberg managed to do so wonderfully is likeability. Malcolm was among the funniest parts of the movie but here he just rambled on and on and seemed to be nothing more than a mouthpiece for Crichton's own views. And Jesus, was Lex annoying! I mean Tim was too in the movie but he was intentionally so and he had as a friend of mine said, "impeccable comedic timing".

I don't know if it's true but I had the distinct impression of reading about kids written by someone who didn't remember much of his childhood and wasn't all that used to hanging out with kids.

But it WAS exciting and it was thoroughly enjoyable. Crichton is an easy read. In fact he helped me get through Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, because even Malcolm couldn't compare to THOSE philosophical ramblings!

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Review: Something Wicked This Way Comes

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have a weird relationship with Ray Bradbury; while I tend to really like his concepts and themes the actual writing always leaves me sort of dissatisfied and I mist admit a bit bored. I never did enjoy Farenheit 451. However, I enjoyed what little I read of Dandelion Wine and since this was another coming of age story I wanted to give it a go.

I've always loved stories about faustian deals and considering it was adapted by Disney, I had high hopes for it.

As always the themes and ideas are lovely, the setting out of the story and characters was delightful and excited. I loved the contrast between the two boys and loved the imagery used to describe Jim, half in light, half in shadow. But this is my problem with Bradbury, a lot of imagery and not enough action. There's so much philosophical rambling in this book that it ends up eating away at its suspense and excitement.

I hated how instead of having the children figure out the carnival themselves, Will's father ended up telling them everything in a huge info dump. I though it was a waste of good characters.

I also got very little sense of tension when dealing with the temptation supposedly presented to Will's father and Jim. I never felt like Will's father was in any danger of being seduced by the carnival and that seemed a bit of a let down after being privy to his fears of aging and his longing for boyhood.

But what I DO love is how utterly quotable Bradbury is. His screed on the autumn people is fantastic and the way the book ends with the idea that taking possession of the carousel and using it, even without the manipulative influence of Mr. Dark, could turn them into autumn people themselves. Now that's temptation right there!

All in all and in spite of its flaws I'm glad I read this book. It's a classic of faustian stories and its influence stretches all over. Finally I know where one of my favorite roleplaying games got the term "autumn people". Also, now I'm finally allowed to watch the Disney movie!

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Review: The Hellbound Heart

The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of my favorite horror films ever was based on a short story by Clive Barker. So I was interested from the get go. Later I found out that not only had he directed the film Hellraiser but he had also written the novella it was based upon.

There's a simple elegance to his writing that goes so well with its grotesque elements. When I watched Hellraiser I loved how the horror elements were truly a backdrop for this story about the fatal attraction between Julia and Frank. There's a tendency in horror to exaggerate, to call everything a forbidden secret, an unnamable horro, to overuse the lovecraftian style of suggesting the monsters rather than just describing them.

I loved that Clive Barker described them, and that his descriptions weren't just a boring list of gross adjectives. The initial scene is unsettling, but what truly makes it unsettling is the very human attraction that Julia has for Frank. You get the scene introducing the Cenobites, you get this man, so desperate for sensation that he calls upon them and then all these details come into fruition when you realize this is the man Julia has fallen in love with, this is the sort of man who would have an affair with his brother's bride on the eve of their wedding and then discard her.

It's poignant and it's immediate.

Everything just sort of fell into place. Julia's desperation to escape her marriage so perfectly echoed Frank's desire for a different sort of sensation. And it made such a perfect sense that it was Kristy who escaped the nightmare because she did not want a re-awakening or an alternative to her routine, what she wanted was the man the the other two characters had continuously despised.

Everyone makes such a fuss over Pinhead and the other Cenobites, because they have such a striking looks, but really, what makes this story so great are the human relations in it.

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Review: The Wide Window

The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Now that's what I'm talking about! This book was just as good as the Bad Beginning. It had the action and the quirky writing and the funny side notes.

And what I like best is that the guardians keep changing in personalities. It's not all cartoon villains, not all of them harm through sheer meanness like Olaf; it was refreshing to see a character who did as much damage out of fear and self-centeredness as others do out of sadism.

And it was also nice to see the Baudelaires can step out of their rigid roles and do other things aside from inventing, reading and biting. It makes them seem more resourceful and clever and less naive than they've been in the other books.

But I must say I'm taking a break from the books. They are so easy to read and follow that I know I could plow through them all in a couple of months. I'm a bit concerned that the quirks and formulas might turn out to be too much after all.

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Review: The Reptile Room

The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As with the first book, I thought I would find the writing style obnoxious after the first few pages, but surprisingly I didn't. I even found a new exclamation I'm dying to try out, because who wouldn't love to cry "Nathaniel Hawthorne!" when hysterical? Somehow he managed to chose the perfect author name for swearing.

Quite honestly I think enjoying these books has a lot to do with being an English lit nerd. Though I have to admit I found this book a little less action-packed than the previous one, even when you count in all the snakes. It's a little harder to get excited about opening a suitcase than about foiling a fraudulent wedding.

What I did enjoy very much was all the dirt he heaped on traditional fairytales like little red riding hood and the boy who cried wolf. Don't get me wrong, I love fairy tales to death, but it was very refreshing to see a children's book that acknowledges that lying about stuff is a reality of life and sometimes useful. Funny formulas aside, these books are mature about handling children.

I also quite liked that the children's new guardian was neither horrible nor a moron. It's nice to shake thinks up a bit. Though it'd be even better if the author started recognizing whenever the Baudelaire's themselves are screwing up by telling Olaf their plans! For a bunch of clever orphans they sure seem naive about confronting the villain with useful information like how Monty tore up Olaf's ticket to Peru. Thanks for getting him killed kids!

I've got hope for them though, still got quite about 11 more books to go. Maybe they'll learn.

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Review: The Bad Beginning

The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I devoured this book years ago in one sitting while waiting at the bookstore. The Series of Unfortunate Events books were everywhere then and their faux Victorian covers caught my attention.

When I started reading it I thought I was going to hate it. The tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top misery of the story, the constant use of the joke for explaining words... I love formulaic stories, I really do, but I thought this was just too much...

I ended up really liking it though. It didn't matter how artificial the author's devices seemed to be because when he needed to be genuine he was. The Baudelaires' sadness was genuine and Olaf was a genuinely scary villain. Their troubles are caused by the adults ignoring them and that is so often the cause of a child's tragedy.

I also found it inspiring how evocative the writing was. I loved the film of the books and thought that the almost timburtonesque look of it was perfect, mostly because it matched my impression of the story so well. And the author does this with very little description and a vague sense of era for the books. It's very economic, every little bit counts to create this atmosphere, the covers, the names of the characters reminding you of old-fashioned writers...

I only managed to snag the first book that time at the bookstore. I was still a poor high school student and had to be very careful with how I spent my pocket money. But this year I've made a commitment to finally reading all the Series of Unfortunate Events

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Review: The Shepherd's Crown

The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The afterward of this book says that Pratchett was not through with editing it when he died. I am sad to say that it shows.

I thought the climatic battle was rushed and that the stakes were not quite as high as other witches books have shown. I thought the trains and the King of the Elves were going to play an important part in the final showdown, but I felt they were there merely for show, somehow not really mattering. I felt cheated. I thought Geoffrey's calm-weaving would make an appearance as well, but his thunder got stolen by the old men of Lancre and their sheds? It didn't quite come together in the end.

The death of Nightshade was also a disappointment as was the handling of Tiffany killing three elves. These scenes were so well set up to teach lessons about witchcraft, about what other Pratchett novels have called the "soul and center" of witchcraft. The death of someone who was becoming good and Tiffany faltering in the moral standards that are so important for people who hold such a power.

I thought Letitia and especially Amber would come back, but Amber wasn't even mentioned and Letitia was almost a letdown.

And yet I loved the book. It was such a brave book, from someone who was facing the twilight of his life so bravely. Pratchett killed Granny Weatherwax to kickstart the plot, and it was masterful, setting the stage for a whole new era of witches. It was bold and it was sweet. And I was touched that this character of great struggles was given such a good death, because after what she and her maker have given us, there was no one who deserved it more.

Pratchett also introduced the idea of a male witch and made it make perfect sense. He left Tiffany as the leader of a new future. He bade his readers look to the horizon, to imagine what the next generation would look like, to think up the stories that would be told about them.

Somehow he left us in charge.

I came to Pratchett later than most. I haven't read Color of Magic or even Equal Rites. I came to Pratchett in many ways through the Tiffany Aching books and I loved them fiercely. A lot of what he wrote in them I have taken to heart in my own writing, wishing only to be able to write about responsibility and power and selfishness and difference between being good and being nice with the same ferocity he did.

I'm going to miss him, I'm going to miss Tiffany and I can't lie, I wish this wasn't over yet. Thank you Mr. Pratchett, wherever you are.

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Review: Zombie

Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I love serial killer stories. Love them. With crazy, passionate love.

This was a strange book for me, probably because it wasn't a thriller. What it seemed to be was a flat-narrative, just this weird monotone. I understand what the author was trying to do I think. I used to be fascinated by Antisocial Personality Disorder and that's one of the characteristics, this flat-affect.

But it was weirdly disappointing to me. Earlier this year I read the graphic novel My Friend Dahmer and I loved it. One of the things that had impressed me about Dahmer in general was his attempt to numb out his urges in high school by getting shit-faced drunk. It was moving somehow. Depressing in the fact that those necrophiliac urges had been there almost since infancy and seemed to leave no room for the hope he could ever have a normal life. But it was also heart-warming in a way; he fought those urges, lost in the end, but he put up a fight. So few of the serial killers out there even try to fight.

I think I carried this preconception into reading this book and that's why I found the flat remorselessness not to my liking. I was hoping for a bit more struggle in the story but it ended up being a completely different thing.

Still, the straightforward lack of emotion was chilling. It is certainly a very accurate portrayal of a sociopath, or at least what I think a sociopath is.

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Review: Doctor Sleep

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I came to Stephen King late in life. Of course I'd watched the Shining movie when I was a teenager but until recently I had only vaguely considered reading the novel it was based on. And then Doctor Sleep came out...

I thought it was such a bold move! So ballsy! Go King! Taking one of the stories that had cemented him as a writer and continuing it after so many years. I was in awe. So I got a copy of The Shining and decided I needed to read it all and then check out the new book.

I was disappointed, but I also seriously loved the the book.

When I read the summary I was a bit put off that Dany had somehow ended up living a shitty life after what he had survived at the Overlook. I felt cheated. But when I actually read the book it made so much sense to me. I loved that you had to start the novel with Dany at his lowest so that you could watch him get better, get sober, get happy. It made his struggle with the Overlook's memories and his powers very real to me. I love stories about prodigy kids all grown up and in that sense, Doctor Sleep was just perfect.

I loved Abra too, I loved her plot twist origin and her connection with Dany. I loved the echos she had of Jack's personality in stark contrast to how much more peaceful Dany was. She was fierce and young and I thought I was going to hate her but I loved her.

My big problem with the book were the antagonists. The True Knot were built up so much. Their history was fascinating, their personalities varied and very interesting. The threat they posed was palpable. I loved the menace! And then... it just didn't deliver. The story resolved itself so quickly. abra and Dany had just too much support everywhere and managed the antagonists with actually very little trouble. No one died, no one suffered much. Abra wasn't even in danger for that long. With such a powerful build up in the end the antagonists just fell flat. I had no sense of large stakes when they were taken down. It felt like just a formality.

I still had plenty of fun with the book though and don't regret having taken the time to read it or The Shining. And I still think it was a badass thing for King to do, to write a sequel after so many years and so much praise for his story.

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Review: Moby Dick

Moby Dick by Rod Espinosa
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had finished this book a year ago and for reasons unknown had forgotten to update the goodreads thing.

I was ridiculously proud of having finished it, since this is one of those books you read frantically in the hopes of skimming the chapters you need for school. You get a general idea, but you never finish it and if you do it's an effing miracle.

So a miracle happened and I finished it. REALLY a miracle. It's a difficult read, I'm not gonna lie. Especially difficult because after the first Ishmael-perspective chapters (and his awesome bromance with Queequeg) it gets really hard to follow characters around. I had to plow through the cetology and history chapters I even had to look up images in google to make sure I understood what the whaler crew was doing when Melville described butchering and hunting. Still, I'm a sucker for naval stories and this didn't disappoint.

I'm probably going to have to read it again because these parts of the book are still blurry and I probably can't locate half the characters I should. But now at least I can brag I finished effing Moby-Dick.

How cool is that!?

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Review: Introducing Children's Literature: From Romanticism to Postmodernism

Introducing Children's Literature: From Romanticism to Postmodernism by Deborah Cogan Thacker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm an English major from UNAM in Mexico City. I'm graduating via a translation with commentary of Frances Hodgson Burnett's Sara Crewe. I got this book for research.

Though this wasn't particularly useful for me, it was an extremely interesting read and it honestly made me want to read a couple of children's books I hadn't heard of before. My classes in uni have been very lacking in children's literature. I mean obviously you take a look at the Alice books but I think mostly that's that.

What I really liked about this book was how it presented children's literature as part of the literary trends in each period. It's not removed or exempt from Romanticisim or Modernism of Post-modernism, it's all part of the same development.

I think a lot of us English students (or just literature students) come into this area of research because of the books we read as children and this book recognizes that. It isn't really a strange thought, that the books we read as children define the books we read or even WRITE as adults.

I would have liked it if they had a wider selection, but I think all in all they covered some pretty interesting ground. I'd definitely like to read more of their work.

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Review: The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I hated each and every second I was subjected to your eighteenth centuryness Tom Jones. I will never get those months of my life back and shall remember each second I spent in your study with contempt and horror.

But I'm glad I read you. Stupid significant contributions to literature.

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I stand for Dylan Farrow

 

I stand for Dylan Farrow

Freedom

Today I stepped out of the office and felt like garbage. I've been feeling steadily like garbage for the rest of the afternoon except for a couple of lulls when I was thinking of something else.

I felt like everything I have ever touched has turned to shit. I went today to repay a kindness and found myself confronted with my own image in my mother's face. I don't want to feel angry or resentful or small anymore. I don't want to look at my future and find discontent and unsatisfied hopes.

This year has been so hard that I can't recall another period of my life when I was this tired. During the last year I've woken up tired almost every day. I'm so exhausted I've officially given up, at least temporarily. No wonder it's been getting so hard to write anything lately.

Today, I heard tears in the night and remembered my chains.

At times they feel very unreal, distorted like trick mirrors. And then I am left to wonder if things are as I've come to understand them. I get to wonder if maybe I haven't been horribly unfair to my mother, if maybe it really is all me. I have avoided her so conscientously since I left that I never stopped to think of what that would do to her now, given the circumstances. I feel like I should have known this time it was different. This time it was for real.

I cry. I feel the need to atone, feel the overwhelming impossibility of it and feel defeated in a way that is so familiar...

I remember Rosetti's poem, I have been here before, and instead of delicious anticipation all I feel is the dread of guilt, of crushing responsibility. I never thought to feel this way again. My head hurts and I am trying to cry very, very quietly. Is it a vestigial reaction to a completely new situation? Has my ability to empathize with my mother been forever tainted by survival mechanisms? Am I truly that monstrous?

I am tired and wretched and empty. And all I can think is, write, just keep writing, just get down to work, forget where you came from and fix your eyes on the future.