The object of this new series, which I am starting in conjunction with my wonderful friend, Elle, who blogs at Inkproductions.org (well-written, entertaining and thoughtful articles on all things writing and blogging-oriented) is to grab a long-neglected unread book off our shelves, speculate on what we think the book’s about based solely on its cover and then – ta dah! – reveal what the book is really trying to say.
Is it unfair to judge a book by its cover? We’re about to find out!
WHAT IT MIGHT BE ABOUT A young girl, who is without friends of any kind save for a few lemons she finds in a fruit shop one day (which she spray paints bright yellow to hide their decaying state and speaks to in a secret language only dogs and fruit can hear) decides that the only way she will ever be happy is to learn to bake.
Alas though she is poor and unable to afford much in the way of groceries so buying the eggs, flour and sugar exhausts her food budget, leaving her without anything to flavour the cake she intends to bake. Forced to sacrifice her lemon friends for the greater good of the pursuit of happiness (life and liberty will have to wait for another day), she is devastated to learn that their sense of teeth-gnashing betrayal at being used in such an uncaring way flavours the cake with a lingering taste of bitter, reproaching sadness.
Distraught, and wondering how she could have done this to her only friends, and yet hungry for an afternoon snack, she uses the last of her sugar to make a rich, deep icing, smothering the cake, and its happiness-destroying taste in overpowering sweetness.
But she finds to her cost that her happiness lasts only as long as the icing and its attendant sugar buzz, and she wonders if she will ever be happy again.
(image via cheezburger.com)
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother—her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother—tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose.
The curse her gift has bestowed is the secret knowledge all families keep hidden—her mother’s life outside the home, her father’s detachment, her brother’s clash with the world. Yet as Rose grows up she learns to harness her gift and becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern.
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is a luminous tale about the enormous difficulty of loving someone fully when you know too much about them. It is heartbreaking and funny, wise and sad, and confirms Aimee Bender’s place as “a writer who makes you grateful for the very existence of language” (San Francisco Chronicle) (source: BookBrowse.com)
The object of this new series, which I am starting in conjunction with my wonderful friend, Elle, who blogs at Inkproductions.org (well-written, entertaining and thoughtful articles on all things writing and blogging-oriented) is to grab a long-neglected unread book off our shelves, speculate on what we think the book’s about based solely on its cover and then – ta dah! – reveal what the book is really trying to say.
Is it unfair to judge a book by its cover? We’re about to find out!
WHAT IT MIGHT BE ABOUT
Set in a post apocalyptic landscape where only pastel-toned primary colours remain, and houses are small with drawn-on windows – evidently glass has become a scarce commodity, too precious to make windows with; who stole all the sand I wonder? – and apparently no doors so I am guessing axes are a popular , and now socially unacceptable, way for gaining entry to homes.
Most people, too poor to even afford a single children’s building block house, look out on a bleak landscape of white nothingness … well they would if they could see through the impenetrable wood of the fake windows that is.
It is barren existence with nothing much to do which eventually drives the hero of the story Jack (I peeked just a teensy-weensy little bit at the blurb, I must confess) to journey out into the empty expanse for excitement, adventure, and a non-axed-in door.
Will he find some glass? Is there anything beyond the nothingness of his immediate neighbourhood? And can you sustain an entire novel on this premise alone?
Jack has only 48 hours to find out before the crayons that drew his window scribble him out, along with those he loves, forever.
WHAT IT’S ACTUALLY ABOUT
To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it’s where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.
Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it’s not enough…not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son’s bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.
Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.
Books, like music and certain scents, possess a potent ability to conjure up long-dormant memories.
Just how potent was brought home to me when I read that E. L. Konigsburg, author of From the The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil. E. Frankweiler (1967), and about 20 other books for children and young adults, had passed away at the age of 83.
In mere nano-seconds, I was transported back to a time when dinosaurs ruled the earth and I … just kidding.
It was, in fact, 1975, there was not a Stegasaurus to be seen (much to my disappointment), and I was in Year 5 at primary school excitedly filling out my latest Scholastic books order.
I clearly remember like it was yesterday ordering Konigburg’s iconic book, along with The Finches Fabulous Furnace by Roger Wolcott Drury (1971) and devouring both when they arrived some weeks later.
(This was pre-Amazon, and fast courier shipping but after dinosaurs, just so we’re clear.)
The fact that I remember both these books clearly, and can recall their titles and authors all these years later is testament to the fact that both Konigsburg and Drury crafted imaginative stories that have stood the test of time.
So it was with some sadness that I read about Konigsburg passing.
But she was not just a major influence on my childhood.
She powerfully impacted the lives of children everywhere who could identify with characters who were, in her words, “softly comfortable on the outside and solidly uncomfortable on the inside” (source: eduplace.com)
And her appeal never wavered throughout the years, largely because she was able to meet children where they were at.
“The essential problems remain the same. … the kids I write about are asking for the same things I wanted. They want two contradictory things. They want to be the same as everyone else, and they want to be different from everyone else.They want acceptance for both.”
And her imagination was vast and limitless, with just enough quirkiness to appeal to readers who liked a little oddity dropped into their books.
Her books, especially her best known work, From the The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil. E. Frankweiler (which won her the first of her two Newbery Medals; the other being awarded to The View From Saturday, released in 1997) gave children the confidence to believe anything was possible.
It certainly spurred me to write and dream and pursue all those grand impossible ideas that reality said should not even be attempted.
Thank you E. L. Konigsburg for the imagination, the inspiration, and the motivation to live life larger than I thought possible.
* Which books and authors had a similar effect on your as a child?
Being Astrid Krieger is absolutely all it’s cracked up to be.
She lives in a rocket ship in the backyard of her parents’ estate.
She was kicked out of the elite Bristol Academy and she’s intent on her own special kind of revenge to whomever betrayed her.
She only loves her grandfather, an incredibly rich politician who makes his money building nuclear warheads.
It’s all good until…
“We think you should go to the public school,” Dad said.
This was just a horrible, mean thing to say. Just hearing the words “public school” out loud made my mouth taste like urine (which, not coincidentally, is exactly how the public school smells).
Will Astrid finally meet her match in the form of public school? Will she find out who betrayed her and got her expelled from Bristol? Is Noah, the sweet and awkward boy she just met, hiding something?
David Iserson (image via goodreads.com)
For most writers, getting publicity of any kind is a challenge of Herculean-proportions.
Not so for David Iserson, author of upcoming novel, “Firecracker” which releases May 16 in the USA.
No camping out on Facebook for days on end, or tweeting 24/7, or begging friends and far flung relatives to give his first born book 5 star reviews on Amazon, for him … and the reason why has everything to do with his stellar day job as a film and television writer.
He is currently a writer for Fox’s smash hit sitcom New Girl, but has also created winning bon mots for venerable comedy institution Saturday Night Live, comedy Up All Night and the brilliantly creative The United States of Tara.
And so when it came to tell the world about his first novel, he did what any self respecting person in his position would do.
He asked the amazing actors and performers he works with on a daily basis to star in the trailer for Firecracker and the result is one of the most engaging, fun and absorbing book trailers I have ever seen.
I am still not entirely sure I like teaser trailers.
On the one hand they give you a tantalisingly brief look at an eagerly anticipated show.
While on the other … well, they give you a tantalisingly brief look at an eagerly anticipated show.
A double-edged promotional sword if ever there was one.
In this case though, the trailer has served to whet my appetite for CBS’s upcoming 13-part adaptation of Stephen King’s Under the Dome, a sealed-up examination of what happens to ordinary God-fearing folk when they shut off from the outside world by a mysterious translucent dome which covers their town of Chester’s Mill, Maine.
It brings out the best in some, and the worst in others; kind of like The Walking Dead, thematically at least, in a vacuum.
This trailer manages in 31 all-too-quick seconds (assuming of course there are slow seconds; oh right yes, work days) to evoke a sense of dread, panic, uncertainty and fear, the curtain raiser emotions to a dark and harrowing exploration of the light and dark sides of humanity.
According to one of the show’s executive producers Jack Bender who was quoted by ew.com during a panel presentation at Wondercon on Saturday night:
“The Dome allows certain types of people — [car dealer] Big Jim being one of them — the opportunity to become a bit of a dictator and exercise his power because they are cut-off from anyone who would check that power.”
The book is intended as a jumping off point for the series (a creative strategy which has the full backing of King who serves as executive producer along with showrunner Brian K. Vaughan and Neal Baer and Jack Bender), which aims to create the same sense of mystery and other-worldiness that benefited Lost.
Screenshot from the teaser trailer (image via bleedingcool.com (c) CBS)
Speaking on the same Wondercon panel, Vaughan joked:
“So what I hope to do is rip off from ‘Lost’ as much as possible.”
The goal, elaborated Rachelle Lefevre, who plays investigative reporter Julia in the series (and who was also quoted by ew.com), is to emulate Lost in so far as Under the Dome will make sure the characters are the centrepiece of a gripping drama that just happens to have sci-fi trimmings.
“Every week the characters get a chance to show you who they are,” she said.
Let’s just hope they remember that with the mystery must come some answers.
All mystery and no answers doth not make for a very happy viewership. (Right Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse?)
It’s all looking promising so far however.
Under the Dome premieres on Monday, June 24, 2013 at 10PM on CBS.
* POSTSCRIPT 2 April: Here’s a first look at the show …
Diving headlong into one of Peter F Hamilton’s science fiction novels, with their fully-complete worlds, richly-detailed cultures, and authentically-believable characters is so all-encompassing that it’s as if you’re there in person experiencing it all firsthand.
Which is quite an achievement since Hamilton, who is widely regarded as Britain’s foremost science fiction author, has a penchant for setting his stories in far off futures where mankind has conquered the stars but not alas, at least for the idealists among us, his inner demons.
And the last time I checked no one was selling tickets to the future, flawed or otherwise so having Hamilton to take us there, or at least his vision of it, is quite a gift.
While the optimists may mourn mankind’s still intact clay feet, readers will lap up the fact that in Hamilton’s latest book, The Great North Road, the flaws are now gaping voids across what is otherwise an advanced, highly evolved interstellar civilisation.
Among the many worlds that now make up mankind’s realm in 2142, where portals make travelling to alien planets as easy as crossing the street, and the North family, made up almost solely of clones of its founder, have created cheap energy for all (at a price, of course), something evil is lurking in the verdant jungles of St Libra.
Quite whether it’s manmade or an indigenous type of fauna, which somewhat unnervingly on St Libra is oddly non-existent (at least as far as anyone knows) is up for debate.
Twenty years ago when one of the founding sons of the North dynasty, Bartram North and pretty much his entire household were slaughtered – his branch of the family rule St Libra as their personal fiefdom – guilt was quickly assigned to Angela Tramelo, the only survivor of the terrible murders.
Peter F Hamilton (image via torbooks.co.uk)
But she refused to admit any guilt for the atrocities, steadfastly maintaining with resolute conviction that alien life forms were responsible and that if the authorities, keen to make a quick, politically-convenient conviction, wanted to find the real killer they should journey to the wild unexplored continent of Brogal and conduct a proper search.
Which twenty years after her imprisonment is exactly what the Human Defence Agency (HDA) does, launching a massive expedition which is triggered by the murder of another North clone, this time in the city of Newcastle, and one which bears all the hallmarks of the killing on St Libra all those years before (with Tramelo still snug in her cell).
As the investigation by Detective Sidney Hurst on Earth uncovers more and more bizarre elements to the case, people on the expedition start dying in the forests of Brogal while Tramelo, still proclaiming her innocence, is blamed for deaths that are anything but normal.
It soon becomes clear that St Libra maybe hiding a secret far deadlier than anyone, least of all the visionary-minded zealots running the HAD, could ever have imagined.
Hamilton has once again crafted a universe where mankind, advanced though he is, and replete with long genetically-enhanced life and technology beyond imagination, is nonetheless at the mercy of forces beyond his control.
In Great North Road, that admittedly does lag a little in the sections which deal with the Newcastle murder, and is a considerable read at about 950 pages, (though it never outstays its welcome), the master of space opera has crafted a mystery of universal proportions that keeps you guessing to the last.
And as a result, make it quite impossible to put the book down.
He also seamlessly weaves in sumptuously detailed examinations of what it means to be human in an age of almost god-like power and accomplishment, and questions about whether we have a divine right to stomp wantonly about the galaxy, acquiring what we like, without once impinging on, or slowing down, what is consistently a gripping, engaging narrative.
Great North Road is, much like his earlier work, a near total submersion into a perfectly-realised future version of human civilisation, and proof positive that the master of the science fiction epic is at the top of his game.
*Check out Peter F Hamilton talking about Great North Road …
It’s a process almost as old as cinema itself – taking a much loved book and giving it a new lease of life on the big screen.
L Frank Baum’s first Oz novel for instance, The Wizard of Oz, released in 1900 (and the first book in his 14 volume Oz series) was turned into the film, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a scant 10 years later. And again, most famously, in 1939 by MGM. (Another one of his books has just been turned into current cinema hit, Oz the Great and Powerful.)
It was joined throughout the twentieth century by movie adaptations of works by authors as diverse as Agatha Christie (The A.B.C Murders, 1936), Mark Twain (Huck and Tom, 1918), Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho, 1991), Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 1964 and 2005), and J. K. Rowling (the Harry Potter series of novels, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, 2001 through to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, 2011) to name but a few.
And if you were, or indeed are, a film producer in Hollywood it makes sense that you would want to invest considerable time and effort in bringing a book to the big screen since it is a known story with a built-in base of avid fans which, often out of curiosity alone, will rush to the cinema to see their favourite tome on the screen, guaranteeing you at least some modicum of success.
And so it continues in 2013 with a number of buzz-worthy literary adaptations heading to your local cinema.
We decided to pick the three titles we’re most looking forward to and give you some idea of what to expect.
The Spectacular Now by Tim Sharp
(image via collider.com)
THE BOOK
This much-loved young adult book, which was a finalist for the US National Book Award in 2008, doesn’t pull any punches.
Focusing on unrepentant teen drunk, Sutter Keely, who is more anti-hero than hero and who stubbornly refuses to see the error of his ways and turn over a new leaf by book’s end, is a figure of worship on his high school’s party circuit.
A guaranteed party starter, and the sort of person your party wants in attendance if it’s going to make its presence felt on the social radar, he lives solely in the here and now, caring not for the consequences of his actions or what lies ahead of him.
All this looks like changing, of course, when he wakes up one morning on the front lawn of a house he doesn’t recognise and meets Aimee, who is as socially-challenged as it is possible to be but full of hopes and dreams for the future.
Sensing a challenge, and consummately in awe of his own abilities (he fails to recognise they have a limited lifespan and usefulness), he sets out to makeover Aimee, who confounds every last one of his expectations when, though drawn to him, she refuses to play by his rules.
THE MOVIE
It has major buzz attached to it.
A hit when it debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, with both of its leads Miles Teller (Sutter Keely) and Shailene Woodley (Aimee Finicky) in attendance, it was widely regarded as a fitting visual companion to the book.
With a script by (500) Days of Summer screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, and directed by James Ponsoldt, it was described by hollywoodreporter.com in their review as “a sincere, refreshingly unaffected look at teenagers and their attitudes about the future”.
VERDICT
This may just be one of the best YA book-to-movie adaptations to hit the big screen in some time, and certainly up there with the much-acclaimed The Perks of Being a Wallflower (by Steve Chbosky).
The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald
Image via impawards.com)
THE BOOK The decadent 1920s, the decade-long exercise in endless extravagance and wanton indulgence that culminated in the ruin of The Great Depression, is captured perfectly in Fitzgerald’s seminal work.
Narrated by World War One veteran and Yale graduate, Nicholas “Nick” Carraway, who is newly arrived in the fictional Long Island enclave of the wealthy West Egg, and is the partial outsider looking in on Gatsby’s doomed world of luxury, The Great Gatsby gives a penetrating and often damning look at the lives of the nouveau riche who party away as if their hedonistic, and ultimately unfulfilling, lifestyles will never come to an end.
As Nick, eager to make his way as a bond salesman in New York, moves deeper and deeper into this glittering world, he comes to know its lynchpin, the mysterious Jay Gatsby whose wildly extravagant parties every Saturday night are legendary.
It all ends in tragedy alas, as the glitz and glamour of the world around Gatsby is stripped away, revealing people living morally bankrupt, empty lives and causing ruin for almost everyone involved, bar Nick who determines to leave New York and a world he can no longer tolerate.
THE MOVIE
Co-written and directed by Australian Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge, Romeo and Juliet), and starring Martin Scorsese’s go-to-guy, Leonard DiCaprio as Gatsby and Tobey MacGuire as Nick Carraway, this latest adaptation of The Great Gatsby is scheduled to open the 66th annual Cannes Film Festival in May this year.
Delayed somewhat from its original release date, it nevertheless has retained a great deal of buzz, largely thanks to Luhrman’s reputation as a consummate filmmaker.
THE VERDICT The Great Gatsby is reputed to be fiendishly difficult to bring to the big screen but if anyone can bring F Scott Fitzgerald’s much-lauded work to life without sacrificing its literary credentials, it is Luhrmann.
All eyes, of course will be on Cannes on 15 May (although the film actually premieres five days earlier in the USA, the first time a Cannes opener has not been a world premiere).
World War Z by Max Brooks
THE BOOK A follow-up to the highly successful 2003 book, A Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War eschewsthe standard narrative structure used in most novels in favour of a collection of first hand accounts of the (obviously) fictional decade-long Zombie War.
Modelled on Studs Terkel’s oral history of World War 2, The Good War, World War Z documents the accounts of survivors of the war that saw what was left of mankind battling fast-moving hordes of zombies (undead humans infected by an incurable virus, Solanum).
Brooks plays the part of an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission, which oversees the reconstruction of human civilisation, or what remains of it, after the war, he recounts via first person survivor accounts how mankind came perilously close to extinction at the hands of this terrifying enemy.
Drawing on the geopolitical and military realities of today’s world, World War Z grippingly documents how destructive war can be, but also the lengths people will go to save themselves, those they love and the society in which they live.
THE MOVIE
Recognising the book’s unorthodox non-narrative structure would not a compelling movie make, the producers re-tooled the book’s structure so it more closely resembles an apocalyptic action thriller than a sobering re-telling of the horrors of war.
The story now centres on Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), a worker at the United Nations who races around the world gathering any information that will assist humanity in arresting and defeating the zombie outbreak.
These understandable changes aside, it still promises to be no less horrifying a recounting as it details the near complete destruction of civilisation as we know it.
THE VERDICT
Troubled by reports of cost overruns and filming delays, World War Z nevertheless looks like a thrilling movie that imaginatively re-tools the book’s more documentary-style structure.
The main concern is whether the sobering lessons of the horrors of war remain intact in some form, since that is after all the heart and soul of the book, but it is something we will have to wait till June this year to find out.
* So which books-to-movies are you most looking forward to seeing this year? Do you watch movie adaptations of books or prefer to read the book and leave it at that?
* This post originally appeared on writingbar.com*
Love, it has been said, is a “many-splendoured thing”, and while that sentiment was uttered in the context of the 1955 film and song of the same name, it holds true for literature too.
With the exception of dystopian storytelling, where romance is just another blight upon human existence, love is presented as the fulfilment of all human desire, the reward for undergoing all manner of trials and tribulations, and the very real promise of a happy ever after.
Which is why we lap it up, of course.
It is a welcome break from the often banal world we live in where catching the next bus or finishing our tax return often takes precedence over moonlit nights by the bay with the one we love.
It’s no wonder then that many of the blissfully happy – at least they are at the end of the story to our great relief and pleasure – couples we encounter in books have become the object of longing and adoration, as if the very act of admiring them would be enough to replicate such perfectly expressed love in our own lives.
Or maybe we are lucky enough to have been blessed with a partner as delightful and perfect as any writer’s creation (with the odd flaw to keep them humble), and we look to these characters for inspiration on keeping the passion of new romance as fresh as the day it began.
Or we simply love the idea of two people being truly, madly, deeply in love.
Whatever the motivation, these couples are near and dear to our hearts and are worth celebrating on any day really.
But this being Valentine’s Day, we thought it an opportune time to take a look at five couples that defied the odds, and found love that in many cases has lasted the ages.
Odysseus and Penelope in The Odyssey by Homer
If ever there was a paragon of marital faithfulness, it is Penelope who remains true to her beloved Odysseus through his long absence fighting in the Trojan War.
It is all the more impressive when you consider that throughout her husband’s extended sojourn, she is courted by no less than 108 suitors (none of them particularly prize catches it has to be said)!
That is a lot of whatever the ancient equivalent of flowers and chocolate gifts was.
Weary from being continually courted by men she has no intention of marrying (although at one point she does consider marrying one of her less repulsive suitors when the goddess Athena mischievously meddles in Penelope’s life) she even makes a recently returned disguised Odysseus jump through a few hoops – firing a bow, and of all things, moving a bed – before she accepts he truly is her husband and they are blissfully reunited.
While it isn’t smooth sailing for either of them, Homer implies that their reward for all this separation, and their devotion throughout it, is a long and peaceful life together, the original happy ever after.
“Will you all just leave me alone!” Penelope delays answering her suitors by sewing and then picking apart a burial shroud for Odysseus’s ageing father, Laerte (image via www1.union.edu)
Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
If ever someone deserved a break in life, it is the eponymous protagonist in Jane Eyre who suffers greatly in life before finding true love with her beloved Mr Rochester. But it is a long and emotionally traumatic road to happiness.
She grows up with her maternal uncle’s family, the Reeds, and while her uncle treats her with kindness (as does one of the servants, Bessie, when she’s in the mood), her aunt regards her with undisguised contempt and isolates her from her cousins and any sort of meaningful family life.
Sent away to boarding school, she is again victimised, this time by the man in charge of the school, Mr Brocklehurst, who buys the line he’s been given that Jane cannot be trusted, and treats her accordingly.
From that point on, while she does meet and fall in love and even come close to marrying the very eligible Edward Rochester, she is subjected to being attacked by a savage woman at his home (turns out it’s the current, totally mad-as-a-hatter first wife), loses all her possessions, gets lost on the moor and comes close to death.
It is a life of soap operatic proportions and you could well understand if Jane decides it’s all too hard and just gives up.
But in the spirit of all plucky heroines, she perseveres, finds out that she is the heir to a large fortune, and now a woman of independent means, is reunited with a cruelly disfigured Edward (a victim of the fire his wife lights at their home which ends up killing her) who she loves regardless and marries, and yes, lives happily ever after (are you seeing a pattern here?).
“No really, we’re blissfully happy. Honestly. We’re smiling rapturously on the inside.” Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson as Edward Rochester and Jane Eyre in the 2006 movie adaptation of the novel (image via listal.com)
Emma and Dexter from One Day by David Nicholls
It is truism often quoted that real enduring love begins its life as deep, rich friendship.
And that’s certainly the case for Emma and Dexter, who meet on July 15, 1988 while at university and commit thereafter to reunite each year on the same day.
Theirs is a story of unrequited love from both parties. It’s not that they don’t want to act on their feelings but life has an annoying habit of getting in the way.
They’re either not in the same city or even country and when they are, one person will be in a relationship while the other remains single, or one has a successful career while the other flounders.
Whatever the obstacle, and there are plenty of them, it’s only when Dexter finally admits his feelings to Emma one night while he is visiting her in Paris, that they finally begin a life together.
Alas, and I will not give away too much for those who have not read the book , this is not a case of living out the fairytale ending but it is a tale of strong and enduring love and friendship that manages to finally find its fulfilment, and that in itself is inspiration enough.
“So how’s July 15 looking for you?” Emma and Dexter encounter all manner of obstacles to getting together but persist and finally find love. In this shot Anna Hathaway and Jim Sturgess playing Emma and Dexter share some time together in the 2011 movie adaptation of the book (image via butlerscinemascene.com )
Julie and R in Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
So this is the quirky choice but bear with me because the love story at its heart is as true and passionate as any you might have read before.
Julie and R meet one day when she is out with a teenage raiding party looking for medical supplies in a zombie-plagued post-apocalyptic Earth where a rump humanity is sheltering from the flesh-eating hordes behind reinforced domes, and R, rather unkindly, eats her boyfriend Perry’s brains.
As he does so, he experiences Perry’s memories and the deep love he has for the lovely Julie, who understandably is even more shocked when R, among a few zombies capable of limited thought and speech, smears her with his blood to mask her fresh scent and whisks her off to a deserted plane he and his friend M (they can only remember the first letter of their names) call home.
There to Julie’s great surprise, and the disbelief of those living humans whom she reveals this unusual relationship to, she and R develop a close and enduring bond that has a startling effect not just on R but on all his fellow zombies who have not decayed into the fearsome skeletal Boneys.
Unusual though its set up and setting is, this is an engrossing, touching love story that fundamentally underlines what a powerful emotion it is.
“Oh R, you sure know how to show a girl a great undead time” Pictured are Teresa Palmer as Julie and Nicholas Hoult as R in the soon-to-be released film adaptation of the novel (image via shockya.com)
Henry DeTamble and Clare Anne Abshire from The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger Now if you think Penelope from The Odyssey was a patient woman, spare a thought for poor Clare Anne whose marriage is lived in short, unpredictable snatches whenever her husband, who time travels to no particular pattern thanks to a genetic disorder, appears in her life.
Pinning down when she first meets the love of her life is a challenge in itself. While they technically first meet in 1991 at Newberry Library where 28 year old Henry works, it is their first meeting as far as Henry is concerned but the latest in a long line of meetings for Clare who has had Henry popping into her life over and over since her childhood (but these visits only start once they actually meet since Henry only travels to places and to see people with whom he has an association).
Despite the unusual nature of their courtship, and her long periods without him, Clare falls in love with Henry accepting that theirs will be a strange and unusual love that will not be easily explainable on Facebook.
What is most touching about their relationship is the absolute devotion they both show to each other in various ways across their fractured time together and it is a credit to Niffenegger that these two people in a very improbable situation capture our hearts as fully as they do.
“He’s going to kiss me! Yes! Oh no, but what if he disappears before he can … hurry up Henry, hurry up!” Pictured are Henry (Eric Bana) and Clare Anne (Rachel McAdams) from the movie adaptation of this most beautiful of books (image via edgeoftheplank.com)
*So which fictional couples from the world of literature have captured your heart?
H G Wells and Isaac Asimov, and reputedly even Nostradamus and The Bible have all taken a crack at it to varying degrees of success – and who exactly predicted we’d have flying cars by now? Yup that totally didn’t happen – but for the rest of us mere mortals it’s an inexact science with no guarantee of success.
Which is why detailing the five big pop culture moments that I think will make 2013 for me is a tad risky but giddy as I am with end of year expectation for an amazing year (in common with every New Year’s Eve mind you; I’m such a glass-half-full kind of guy) I am willing to take the plunge, nail my predictive colours to the walls, and yes mangle a few metaphors in the process.
So here are, in no particular order the nuggets of pop culture goodness I am most looking forward to in 2013, keeping in mind of course that in this big exciting world, they could all be swept aside by things I didn’t see coming.
And frankly that won’t worry me at all …
P!NK’s The Truth About Love tour
(image via fanpop.com)
I love this gutsy amazing lady.
She can sing like a diva, is refreshingly candid about life and all its many complications and joys, and isn’t afraid to be defiantly, delightfully herself in a world which bays for everyone to slavishly confirm to the same beige look.
And she is one of the most entertaining singers I have ever seen perform, holding the audience over a two plus hour concert in the palm of her hand from start to finish, and turning big cavernous stadium shows into intimate coffee shop shows (well, almost) by virtue of her warm, down to earth nature.
While like most performers, she probably has the songs picked out in advance and has the patter down pat (lovely alliteration), she goes to great lengths to inject some spontaneity and fun into proceedings, riffing off concertgoers with abandon, and gives you the impression she is having the time of her life.
And I suspect on some level she is.
(image via wikipedia)
You couldn’t possibly sustain a major tour like that – on her last tour of Australia in support of her Funhouse album in 2009, she did something like 58 shows and played to 660,000 people, making it the biggest tour in Australia’s history – without enjoying it to some extent.
Whatever it is she’s feeling on the night, she gives her fans the impression, and at the risk of sounding like a totally besotted fan boy I will repeat I am sure it’s genuine, that she is having the time of her life, and I don’t expect it to be any different when she tours next year in support of The Truth About Love.
WHEN DOES THIS HAPPEN? August 2013
THE RETURN OF THE WALKING DEAD
(image via buyonlinefree.com)
If you had told me a scant six months ago that I would miss zombies stumbling about like drunk village idiots with vertigo chasing after a plucky band of flawed but likeable survivors -with the exception of The Governor and Merle who frankly strain the idea of “likeability” to breaking point; unless of course you adore psychos – I would have laughed at you like you were infected with some sort of virus, done the sign of the cross, and run to hide under my blanket fort, which as we all know from childhood, keeps all the scary stuff at bay.
But here I am at the end of the year pining for the apocalypse.
Well not the actual apocalypse of course which I imagine would be far too cheesecake-deficient for my liking (not to mention the absence of iTunes and shopping on ebay).
But the end-of-the-world as featured on The Walking Dead, while violent, deadly and not the sort of place I want to spend any time at all in real life, has a certain seductive quality which frankly surprised me when I first began watching it.
“Please keep watching me! Please!” begs the less-than-attractive lady zombie. “OK sure,” I say “but please do not ever attempt to hug me. EVER” (image via geektyrant.com)
And it took a long time for my housemate to convince me.
Months and months of gentle and not-so-gentle cajoling led to me grudgingly watching the pilot episode, which was followed by increasingly less reluctant viewing of all subsequent episodes until I had watched them all, subscribed to all the show’s official and unofficial Twitter feeds and could discuss an episode like I had been watching it all my life.
And now I sit here typing away, wishing that season 3 would kick off tomorrow and not in February.
When it does I am expecting it to be every bit as good as season 3 has been to date.
The worlds of Woodbury, ruled over by a completely unhinged governor – losing your walker daughter to a big ass sword wielding Michonne will do that to a guy on the edge – and the prison – Rick is not off gaga bananas territory himself I’m afraid are going to collide and an even greater hell than already exists will rise to consume everyone.
(You can read a great article talking about the rest of season 3 here.)
And I will, of course, be sitting front and centre avidly watching every moment.
Who’da thunk it huh?
WHEN DOES THIS HAPPEN? February 13, 2013.
DR WHO’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY
(image via nerdapproved.com)
So the doctor is 50?
Why he doesn’t look a day over 30! (Matt Smith, the current doctor’s actual real age, by the way; yes I know far too much about this show.)
That’s the magic of regeneration, by which the doctor is able to reform his life energy into a brand new form whenever death threatens to claim him.
And so far he has escaped death a grand total of 10 times, which is a handy way of continuing the show every time the actor playing him decides it’s time to move on.
But it does pose tricky logistical issues for the 50th Anniversary since there’s an awful lot of people and footage to accommodate.
David Tennant is onboard for the anniversary special which warms my heart no end since he is my favourite doctor by far (image via tennantnews.blogspot.com)
But I have no idea they will find a way to fit every last juice morsel of Dr Who goodness into the 90 minute special, which according to the site nerdapproved.com, which in turn cites a quickly deleted post off blogtorwho.co.uk, will go something like this:
“… all eleven doctors will appear in the 90-minute episode, even the dead ones…somehow. Not only that, there are two scripts being prepared—one that prominently features Christopher Eccleston and one that doesn’t depending on how much he wants to be involved (keep in mind that Eccleston has historically been pretty adamant about wanting nothing more to do with the Who franchise).”
Frankly I don’t care.
Whatever form it takes, I know it’s going to be wonderful.
With a show this good, it would be hard to make a bad special really.
WHEN DOES THIS HAPPEN? April 2013.
GREAT NORTH ROAD by PETER F. HAMILTON
I am an avid reader of science fiction.
I lap up book after book by writers like Michael Cobley, Kim Stanley Robinson and Kevin J. Anderson who take me off to the far flung reaches of space and time, wherein great interstellar civilisations, including myriad advanced versions of humanity, wage war, play politics, and change the destiny of whole galaxies in the short time it takes me to turn the page.
My favourite author by far though is one Peter F. Hamilton, a truly talented writer who is often lauded, and not simply by his PR people, as “Britain’s Number One Science Fiction Writer” (I am assuming this is because he writes brilliantly well, and not because he crossed the line first in a foot race between all the writers who showed up one day at Wembley Stadium).
His worlds, his breathtakingly expansive vision of the future, and the people who populate it are exquisitely realised, down to the smallest most intricate detail and you can’t help but be drawn into them and yes on occasion, wished you lived there.
(image via thewertzone.blogspot.com)
His latest expansive work, Great North Road, builds on the Commonwealth sagas that have gone before it (mighty efforts all) comes in at a whopping 1087 pages, and concerns the mysterious goings-on on the planet of St Libra whose bio-fuel “is the lifeblood of Earth’s economy”.
In fact, so important is it that it’s worth killing over, and naturally someone does, but who, and more to the point, why?
I have no doubt I will happily lose myself in it for as long as it takes to find out why, and while technically yes it was released late this year, I won’t have any time to read it till early January 2013 when I am on holidays.
WHEN DOES THIS HAPPEN? Supposedly soon.
(Memo to self: get an industrial-sized bookmark.)
ST. GEORGE OPEN AIR CINEMA
Held every year right on the Sydney Harbour foreshore at Mrs Macquarie’s chair, with sweeping views of the Harbour Bridge, The Sydney Opera House and the brightly lit neon beauty of the City skyline (which, have on occasion, successfully competed for my attention with the film being shown on the enormous screen in front of me), St George Open Air Cinema is one of my sacred rites of summer.
I invariably go at least three times during the season, which typically runs from early January through to mid-to-late February and shows a mix of recent releases and premieres – this year movies like Django Unchained and The Paperboy get their debut here – and fully partake of the summer movie-going vibe.
Yes it does rain occasionally, and I have watched one or two movies wrapped in a plastic poncho – with the right movie, it’s kind of romantically atmospheric; no really … seriously – but for the most part, it stays bright, sunny and gorgeous with views to die for stretching before you.
(image via dailyinspiration.nl)
This year, I have been the very paragon of self-control and restricted myself to just two visits (it can get a little expensive) during which I will be catching up on a movie I missed when it was in the cinema recently, the hilarious black comedy Seven Psychopaths, and a movie making it’s big splashy Sydney premier, I Give It a Year, which looks like it may just well be one of your better-than-average romantic comedies.
And if it’s not, well, there’s always the view … and the ice cream … and the wine … and oh, did I mention the view?
WHEN DOES THIS HAPPEN? January 18 and February 8, 2013
*What zeitgeist-infested events are exciting you in the year ahead? What can’t you wait to see/listen to/read/watch/immerse yourself in?
I have loved reading books since I was a small child.
It was not uncommon for me to get through 70-80 books a year at school, and yes I even got certificates in front of the whole school assembly (which frankly wasn’t the aim of the exercise but it was nice to get the recognition; of course all it need was give the bullies even more ammunition to make my life miserable but hey that was going to happen anyway).
And while adulthood hasn’t proved as forgiving time-wise, I have kept buying physical books, and yes some e-books like they’re going out of fashion.
Of course reading them is a whole other story and I simply don’t get the time to read anywhere near as much as I’d like to.
But I did read some books this year and these are five books that really made an impact.
THE LONG EARTH by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
Multiple universes all stretching into infinity.
All very much the same and yet wildly different.
And all available to resource-hungry, crowded humanity to start anew.
The possibilities of this scenario are endless and Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter make the most of creating an engrossing imagination-gripping adventure that manage that rare feat of persuading me to postpone bedtime, repeatedly, to read “just a little bit more”.
By all accounts just as funny and down-to-earth in real life.
And now she’s written a book and it’s damn near hilarious.
Taking the simple premise that we’re all well trained for the big questions in life – birth, death, marriage – and if we’re not we can educate ourselves, but woefully unprepared for those small awkward social situations no one ever schools for, she sets out to do her best to plug the holes in our knowledge.
The old (an ancient secret order who venerates the physical written word) meets the new Google, special effects and the ever-changing digital age) in this imaginative book about one guy’s quest to solve the mystery of the strange bookstore where he works.
As he does so, he ropes in his friends and eventually even his employer, who it turns out has different ideas on what should be done to solve the riddle to his superiors, and eventually criss crosses the country and back again in his pursuit of the “truth”.
The characters are delightful, the ideas intriguing and the adventure is never so brisk that there isn’t time for an important conversation or two.
This is a perfect summer read that won’t insult your intelligence.
THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME by Mark Haddon
This is one of those books I have had on my bookshelf for years and wanted to read but never quite found the time.
Well I finally found that elusive time and what a joy to read it was.
Christopher, a boy who sits somewhere on the autism spectrum – though the author never specifically says he has autism; it’s just implied – sets out to find out who killed his neighbour’s dog and in the process sets in train a series of events that upends his family and exposes a lot of long held closely-guarded secrets.
It does have a happy ending and despite some traumatic events throughout a warm and happy tone to it thanks mainly to Christopher matter of fact perspectives on, well, just about everything.
THE PARTICULAR SADNESS OF LEMON CAKE by Aimee Bender
Poor Rose Edelstein.
Just turned up and suddenly cursed, or gifted, depending on your point of view with the ability to divine peoples’ emotions by eating the food they cook.
Traumatised by her new ability, she discovers that her outwardly happily, confident mother is instead deeply sad, and disappointed by life, totally unsettling her and causing her to question pretty much everything in a life that’s barely started.
As I noted in my original review though “it’s not all doom and icing-topped gloom. At it’s heart it’s a beautifully written book about how much goes unsaid between people and how the ability to pick up on these unremarked undercurrents can profoundly change the way you relate to the rest of the human race.”
If you want a book that deliver on its quirkily-titled premise, you’ll love the journey of Rose Edelstein and her unusual, life-changing ability.
* So which books have you (a) found the time to read and (b) really enjoyed … and why?
