The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman [February/06]

This is the first in a trilogy by Philip Pullman known as His Dark Materials. I had heard about the series for quite some time, even owned the first book in the series for a while, but never got around to reading them. They are really hyped up books with many people telling me they are the best fantasy novels they have ever read, or something along those lines. It made me nervous to read them because a lot of times when a lot of people are saying good things about a book, I don't end up enjoying it so much. I ended up having to read it for school, though, so I got to get my taste of Pullman. I read it just before I read the novel Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, and I am glad I chose that order because I think I would have strongly disliked it if it had to follow the wonder that is Good Omens.

As it was, the book was not as great as I was expecting it to be. I found I had to force myself to stay with it because I found it rather slow in many parts. It was an interesting read, though, with the daemons and a young girl on the brink of maturity setting off on a wild adventure to the North to save other children of the world. Lyra has never really had a stable life and all she knows of family is the uncle that comes to visit her from time to time where she lives at a college surrounded by many scholars for companions. As a result, she is often running wild with the servant class of the college as there is not many other options open to her. It is her Uncle, Lord Asriel that starts her off on her adventure by sparking in her an interest in dust, and then the rest of the novel goes from there. It is her story, and she is a compelling young lady, but the action is lacking and I just was not blown away with the novel as other people I know where. I am hoping if I finish the trilogy in the future I may come to like it more.

3.5/5

Cloud Nine - Caryl Churchill [February/06]

This is one of the more confusing plays I have undertaken over the last few months. I think it would be a much better play to see in action rather than read as if a book. The author, Caryl Churchill, wishes to cover a lot of major themes in her play. Just a few of them are sexual preference, race, class setting, gender, and much more. In the first half of the play, we witness a Victorian era family residing in a British colony in Africa. The husband is in charge of the "natives", while the rest of the family is expected to reside at home and "be good". The young daughter is even played by a doll in this scene to show her believed mental capabilities. Churchill also causes confusion further by the fact that some of the women characters are played by men, while some of the men characters are played by women. When you are reading it you sometimes forget and just see them as a man or a woman and nothing more, but when you watch it on a stage she hopes that people will overlook the colour, creed, sex, etc and see that when you really think about it, these things are meaningless. The slave, who is said to come from a native tribe, is even played by a white man.

As if some of these qualities in the beginning are not confusing, the second half of the play takes place a hundred years or so after the first part. This might not sound all that bad, but the characters from the first half, some of them are in the second act. The children are adults now and the adults are seniors. They are back in England and the characters are sometimes played by different people than they were in the first half. It is closer to the modern period, and one of the main issues to come out of it is sexual preference. Throughout both halves of the play, characters choose their sexual partners from the same or different sexes quite sporadically. There are only a few "straight" characters in the play, and even some of them by the end are questioning their choices.

It is just a basic story of colonialism and then later life in Britian, but at the same time Churchill has written a play that causes the readers or viewers to question how the world is. Do the things that we make matter so much really matter? Is colour of importance in how you treat someone? Does it matter what sex you choose to spend the rest of your life with? Does it even matter if you are male or female? These are the questions that Churchill leaves you with at the end of the play.

3.5/5

February

I still have a few more books to post, but it was a bad month because I attempted to read:

Sandstorm - James Rollins (did not catch my attention)
True Believer - Nicholas Sparks (usually like his books, but not this one)
Wideacre - Philippa Gregory (this book is weird!)

I spent some time struggling with these three books and it destroyed the overall month.

Firebirds - Sharyn November (February/06)

This is an anthology of fantasy and science fiction short stories. I had to read it for school, but I enjoyed it because it offered me a glimpse at authors from these two genres that I had never read before. Here is a list of authors and their short stories:

Cotillion - Delia Sherman (retelling of Tam Lin)
The Baby in the Night Deposit Box - Megan Whalen Turner (the title says a lot)
Beauty - Sherwood Smith (a story about the importance of beauty)
Mariposa - Nancy Springer (a story about women and losing their souls because of adolescent pressures)
Max Mondrosch - Lloyd Alexander (story about the invisibility of the work force)
The Fall of Ys - Meredith Ann Pierce (retelling of a mythological story)
Medusa - Michael Cadnum (story about the goddess Medusa and a young woman)
The Black Fox - Emma Bull and Charles Vess (comic)
Byndley - Patricia A. McKillip (magical town)
The Lady of the Ice Garden - Kara Dalkey (fairy-tale retelling about the strength of man and woman)
Hope Chest - Garth Nix (adventure story about a family inheritance)
Chasing the Wind - Elizabeth E. Wein (African adventure)
Little Dot - Diana Wynne Jones (story about cats)
Remember Me - Nancy Farmer (sisterly tale)
Flotsam - Nina Kiriki Hoffman
The Flying Woman - Laurel Winter

Those are the stories. Overall a good anthology, even if it is only for YA. It won awards and things.

4/5 - with some stories being better than others.

Emily of New Moon - Lucy Maud Montgomery (Feb/06)

This is one of those books that I have been meaning to read for quite some time. I had read the entire Anne of Green Gables series one summer... quite a while ago actually, but never made it to Emily. When my professor put the book on my Atlantic Canadian fiction course, though, I was quite happy. The novel is about a young girl on the brink of maturity, struggling with the obstacles that life has thrown her way. Her mother died when she was very young, so for several years it had been just her and her father. Then, he develops tuberculosis and she finds herself alone in the world until her mother's relatives claim her. It is an interesting process of elimination as to which family she winds up with, because instead of the family deciding which one wanted her, they make her draw a name out of a hat of all things. So, she starts off her new life feeling quite alone.

New Moon, the house she ends up at, has many adventures waiting for her. Instead of an author like Anne is in her series, Emily prefers poetry and only dabbles in the novel format. Her family does not consider it an appropriate pasttime for a young lady, so she finds that she has to hide it from them. It is a novel that covers many things: the lose of a parent, the adjustment to a new house, crazy relatives, pursuing an unorthidox career for young ladies of the time, and much more. Emily is a remarkable young lady and very unconventional for her time. I saw many parallels with Anne, but at the same time Emily is her own person. That left me with the question of who I liked better, Emily or Anne. I think they both have wonderful atributes, but I have been in love with Anne of Green Gables for many years and just can not replace it so easily.

I am afraid to say anymore about this novel because I think that Emily is something that you have to experience without much forward knowledge. The fact that I find her sort of annoying might not appeal to people, so I don't want to discourage reading her!

4/5