Leftover Book Challenge Review: The Chronicles of Narnia

So, I have another left-over review that wasn't needed on my work blog for the Reading Challenge, and I may as well post it here. The challenge for this week was to read a trilogy or series.

Sharon B read the Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis.

I have a theory about series that go beyond four books: They shouldn’t. A trilogy is great, and a series of four books is thoroughly enjoyable, but past the fourth book, things go a little south. Most series fall into the same pattern, I’ve found:

• The first book is a new and exciting experience; you get caught up in the plot and the characters and you want to read more.
• The second book can’t quite get out of the shadow of the first book; nine times out of ten it doesn’t really have legs as it’s own story, but you enjoy reading it because you get to spend more time with the characters you loved from the first book.
• The third book manages to have a genuinely interesting plot, fills you with excitement and reminds you why you engaged with this series. Or it kind of sucks and you wonder what happened.
• The fourth book is still good, and it can be the most mature and developed story of the whole series – but it’s often a completely different beast to the first book, and there’s something about it that feels like a natural ending.
• Every book after that is moving further and further away from what you loved in the first book, and sometimes they just end up being kind of sad, really.

Now, I love The Chronicles of Narnia. I’ve loved them since I was a kid and I re-read them every now and then – and still love them. But they absolutely conform to my theory. Let’s look at them in publication order:

• The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is one of the finest novels for children in the English language. It was a game-changer that has inspired countless copy-cats over the decades, and has a group of passionate fans who love it to pieces.
• Prince Caspian is a wonderful opportunity to be reacquainted with the Pevensie kids and get back to Narnia for another adventure… but it’s not the most memorable book in the series, and the story isn’t a patch on the first book.*
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a rip-snorter of a story, and the bits that people love most about the series are probably in this book, if they weren’t in the first one. But we lost half the kids from the first book before we even started and, even though we picked up another kid, we lose the other characters we love at the end…
• The Silver Chair (the Fourth Book in the series) is actually a really good book with a great story, but it doesn’t have any of the characters from TLtWatW, so it kind of feels as if the story that started in that book is well and truly over. If this had been the last book, it would have been a good book to end on.
• The Horse and His Boy is an odd book that stands on its own well enough, but doesn’t feel like it belongs in the series. It’s in the “world”, but completely outside of the narrative of the first four books. If all of the references to “Narnia” were changed to “Elsia”, and “Aslan” was a hawk called “Elsor”, you’d never pick it as belonging to the series – and the series wouldn’t miss it if it wasn’t there.
• The Magician’s Nephew is a prequel that takes away some of the wonder and mystery from the back-story of the first book by filling in gaps that didn’t need filling (how did a street lamp end up in the middle of the Narnian woods?). It’s okay, but it’s not great.**
• The Last Battle is trying too hard to be an analogy, and forgets to be a fun book to read. It’s kind of sad and vaguely depressing and an unfitting end to the series – and I can’t forgive Lewis for what he did to Susan. The series should have stopped before this book.

*I have to admit I usually forget what happens in Prince Caspian. I've re-read it a couple of times, and every time it's like "oh, *that's* what was in this book".

**Having said that, I was given a box set of the series as a child which was in story-event order, not publication order. The Magician's Nephew was actually the first book in the series that I read, and I have fond memories of reading it as a child - especially some parts, like the "wood between the worlds". It's only on re-reading it now that I notice it's definitely post-fourth-book.

Duncan Isn't Horrible

I have a confession to make: I find Hägar the Horrible kind of boring.

This is something that always confuses me, because the strip is currently written and drawn by Chris Browne (the son of Dik Browne, the strip's creator), and Chris Browne wrote Raising Duncan - which just happens to be one of my favourite comic strips of all time.

Raising Duncan featured a tubby bearded guy who's a bit of a big kid at heart and his not-quite-as-tubby wife - sound familiar? The same guy wrote two comic strips simultaneously featuring ostensibly very similar characters. One charmed the socks off me, and the other leaves me indifferent. I don't know how that works.

I don't want to undersell Raising Duncan buy suggesting it's destined to be compared to Hägar. It's quite it's own beast. It's a contemporary (early 2000s) story about a professional couple who have pets instead of children - and it's an entirely joyful take on the idea.

The main characters are a pair of authors, B.D. Kelly (aka, Big Daddy or Bruce, the romance novelist) and his wife Adelle (the more successful crime novelist), and their pets Brambly (the cat) and Duncan (the Scottish terrier). B.D. is more mature and less obnoxious than Hägar, and Adelle is more playful and less nagging than Helga. The pets are, oddly, convinced they are in a relationship (at times they sound like an old married couple), but the true joy of the strip lies in the relationship between B.D. and Adelle.

They are clearly playmates as well as husband and wife, and I have to admit that I envy their camaraderie. Helga and Hägar are often at loggerheads with each other, and there is an extent to which their relationship still feels more comfortable in the 1970s (when their strip was originally created), while B.D. and Adelle get along like a house on fire and take turns being the responsible(ish) adult.

If I could move into a comic strip, and move in next door to an existing comic strip family I'd be had pressed to choose between the Kellys and the Pattersons (from For Better or For Worse, which I'll probably rabbit on about another time).

The thing that amazes me most about Raising Duncan at present, however, is the fact that you can't buy the comics - but you can read them for free on Go Comics (currently one of the most annoying web page designs I have the misfortune to encounter in my day).

It's bizarre. Browne stopped creating the strip years ago, and you should, by rights, be able to buy the whole collection. I certainly would, and I'm sure I'm not alone. So how is it possible in this day and age that people who would be willing to buy something can't - but you can access it as much as you like if you have the patience to putt up with a crappy web page?

Very odd.

A spare review: "A Walk in the Woods"

Over on my work blog, we've been reviewing books every week as part of a 52 Book Reading Challenge.

I've been thinking about writing "bonus" reviews on this page, where I mention a few things I prudently snipped out of a review that's promoting works in my library's collections, but I haven't gotten around to such things.

Recently, though, I stuffed up.

For a number of the reviews, I've chosen books that I had lying around my house that also happen to be books in the collection, and I did that for my most recent review as well....

Only, it turns out that it wasn't a book we have in the collection - it was a book we had in the collection. I couldn't very well review a book we weeded, now, could I? So I've got a left-over book review floating around. Just for the heck of it, I'm putting it here:

*****

Sharon B read A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson.

Have you ever had one of those conversations that go along the lines of: “If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?”

Whenever something like that comes up, my answer is almost always “I’d like to have Bill Bryson’s job.” And this is completely true. I’d love to write Creative Nonfiction for a living. I’m sure there are parts of Bryson’s job that are hard going, but the man takes trips he’s been on, or places he’s visited, or topics that fascinate him, and he manages to spin best-selling books out of them. Who wouldn’t want to do that?

A Walk in the Woods is one of Bryson’s most famous books. It’s a slightly fictionalised account of a hiking trip Bryson undertook in the late 90s, when he decided to walk the Appalachian Trail (“slightly fictionalised” because he changed people’s names and was a bit flexible with his descriptions of his interactions with them).

Chapters that chronicle his time on the trail (with his travel buddy, “Katz”) are interspersed with sections talking about the trail, the history of national parks in America, the fate of certain species of trees or mollusks, and some insights into American culture and the relationship between Americans and their natural heritage.

It’s an interesting mix. The book is basically two books in one. On the one hand we have the story of a hiking trip (the walk in the woods), and on the other hand, we have a collection of essays inspired by the woods in which our heroes walked.

It may be a bit of an acquired taste – and I’ll admit this is my second attempt to read this book. The first time I picked it up I didn’t get past the first couple of chapters. But, I’m glad I took the opportunity to revisit this book and take a walk with Bill – it has been an interesting trip.

*****

Oh, and just between you and me, I didn't actually read this book at all - I've been listening to the audio book in my car. The library I work for has never had the audio version of this book, so I was cheating big time.

Jõudu tarvis

I'm currently on a "road trip" for work, preparing to teach a series of classes for a workshop in one of our microcampuses, and I'm planning on starting the workshops off with an Estonian lesson.

Do I think first-year nursing students in a rural Australian city are particularly interesting in learning Estonian? Well, I can't say I'm expecting many of them to say "Oh, good, that's what I came here for" - seeing as the workshop is on academic writing and research skills.

But I'm going to teach them two Estonian words anyway:

Jõudu tarvis

One of the things I love about Estonians is their world-weary and practical nature.

In Australia, if we see someone undertaking an endeavour, like hard physical labour or a difficult task, or running a race or competing in something that takes effort, we wish them luck.

"Good luck!"
"Thanks!"

That's the standard exchange used in these parts, and we use it often.

In Estonia, however, they tend to should out something different:

"Jõudu!" or "Jõudu tööle!"

This is often interpreted in phrasebooks as "good luck", but it actually means "strength!" or "strength for the work!"

Estonians don't wish each other luck when they're undertaking an undertaking, they wish each other enough strength to tackle the work at hand. It's a beautiful thing.

And the response?

"Jõudu tarvis" - "strength is needed."

It's a simple, shared acknowledgement that this is a job that requires strength.

So why do I want to teach this phrase to a bunch of nursing students at an academic writing workshop?

Because writing assignments is a job that requires strength. It might not look much like plowing a field, but it requires time, effort and the use of "muscles" that you don't use in quite that way for anything else. You don't need luck to do well, you need to throw your shoulder into it.

Sometimes it will feel like pushing a boulder up a hill. And if you're studying more than one subject, you'll have to juggle several boulders at the same time.

Jõudu tarvis - strength is needed.

It helps to acknowledge the hard work that assignment writing can be. It helps to understand that you can't expect it to be easy. But, like all work, you get stronger with time.

Jõudu!

"You deserve it"

I personally hate ads that have the hook "you deserve it" or "because you're worth it" or "you've earned it." Whenever I hear or read an ad that goes with that approach, I always want to ask:

"Really? What did I do to deserve that?"

What could I possibly have done to deserve a lipstick? Or a car? Was it something I did or something I said? (And, if I do "deserve" it, why do I still have to pay for it?)

Any gamer will be able to tell you that you earn something by doing something. No one gets the prize by doing nothing in particular.

It's even more depressing when you get some of the creepier ads on web pages trying to tell you you've "earned" something or "deserve" something. Some time ago, an ad on a page I was using told me I "deserved" a sexy Russian bride. I really want to know what I did to deserve that, and how I can avoid doing it again.

And yet, when you look at a lot of what people say these days (especially when interacting with businesses and services), it seems we've come to believe we deserve a lot of things. I personally blame the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

We invented this idea called "Rights" - this belief that we are entitled to something because we live and are human. This is all well and good, and I'm not saying for a moment that we shouldn't have rights - but I think we need to remember from time to time that they don't actually exist and we aren't actually entitled to them. We made them up, and we give them to each other because we choose to.

"Rights" aren't naturally our due, and we aren't automatically entitled to them, as much as we might think we are.

There's no tangible thing that makes it necessary to give someone a fair trial. It's a lovely idea and I'm glad we've decided that it is necessary, but any dictatorship will be able to show you that it's entirely arbitrary.

In our lovely, non-dictatorship society, we're so used to having "Rights" that we start feeling entitled to things that were never in any charter. This spills over into our interactions with each other and our society, and then advertisers come along and fuel our sense of entitlement even more...

And I think it would do us all some good every now and then to stop and realise "Nobody owes me anything - if I haven't done something to earn it, then I don't deserve it."

We need to do this because it's very hard for gratitude and entitlement to fit in the same space in our heads. When we feel we are owed something - that we're just worth it - we don't realise how wonderful it is to be able to have these things at all.

No, I don't deserve a lipstick. And isn't it fantastic that I have enough disposable income to be able to buy something so completely pointless?* 

No, I'm not entitled to "good service" from the person serving me, so if I get anything above and beyond "adequate service" I should enjoy it as the gift that it is.

How much of what upsets us in our interactions with other people and organisations comes from a subconscious belief that we were owed something better, and we "deserve" to have something we don't have?

How much happier would we be if we expected less and appreciated more of what we get out of life?

*And if I don't have the disposable income, then I really don't deserve it.

Collecting beaches abroad

Or, "if it's Wednesday, this must be Wales"

I've been gadding about in the British Isles for the past few weeks on long service leave, and it has been an interesting mixture of "having a wonderful time" and "just plain exhausting". 

I started with a bus tour of Britain and Ireland, which was worth doing, but definitely too long. By the time we got to Wales everyone on the tour was a bit over it, to be honest. I think we would have benefited from having a long weekend in the middle of the tour to do a spot of nothing.

But, I saw where Shakespeare and Burns were born, where Yeats was buried, where a whole bunch of authors, poets and playwrights went to school, and where Jane Austen danced on her 18th birthday, so that was pretty cool. 

I also found a few statues I'd wanted to see (Peter Pan and Paddington, for example) so that was quite good. 

It has occurred to me that my experience of Britain is somewhat literary. 

While I was tootling around the UK and Eire, I must confess that I forgot to keep up my collection of beaches. On one of my last holidays I started photographing the beaches I visited. And, while I did photograph a few on the bus trip, I largely forgot about it. 

I've seen some interesting beaches and coastlines, that's for sure. I've even been to the Cliffs of Insanity, although the beach was largely out of shot while I was taking photos, it has to be said. 

Pretty much all of my photos of the trip are on a different device, so you'll have to wait for me to return to my regular computer before I can coordinate a spot of sharing. 

This last phase of my trip has been taking it easy in the Channel Islands, and they know how to put on a beach or two. 

It has been interesting to contrast Guernsey and Jersey. Guernsey has a superior bus service, and it was easier to see most of it, but the weather was too bad to get out to the other islands (Sark and all that), and I kind of felt that we'd run out of things worth doing before we left. 

I probably would have enjoyed going on a few walks, but I came down with a rather nasty cold. I'm blaming it on one of the many babies in Guernsey that was coughing merrily over whoever happened to pass by. I don't know why mothers these days seem completely unconcerned with their children coughing on others, but I hope that they are at least equally unconcerned with people coughing on their children. It's only fair. 

Jersey's bus service isn't as comprehensive, and costs twice as much as Guernsey's - literally. You could circle the whole island of Guernsey for 1 pound, but on Jersey it will cost you 2 pounds and you won't even get from one village to the village next door. The bus routes appear to have been designed by someone who doesn't expect people to travel by bus if it can be at all avoided. Actually, that would also explain why they've put decals over the windows so you can barely see the scenery. 

And why so many busses only run on an hourly basis so that it would take a good 3 hours to make a half-hour journey if you were planning to "pop in" somewhere that looked nice to visit, but probably not for a long stretch of time... 

So I've seen less of Jersey on the whole. But, fortunately, half the things I wanted to see closed for the season a few weeks ago anyway. 

Having said that, I've fallen in love with St Brelade's Bay. It's such a lovely spot for a holiday. 

And it has a seriously good beach. 

Luddite (or, Kicking and Screaming)

Luddite is one of those words which have been hijacked over the years by people who never fully understood it.

It has come to mean "someone who is afraid of technology and doesn't want to use it", and I suppose we need a word for that.

However, it used to mean "someone who is alarmed by the way technology replaces humanity, and refuses to accept it" and we no longer have a word for that.

Historically, Luddites were the people who destroyed factory technology during the Industrial Revolution to stop "the man" from replacing workers with machines. They weren't afraid of using technology, they were afraid of being made redundant and irrelevant by it. Of losing their jobs and livelihoods because of it.

There are words for people who don't want to use technology because they don't feel competent using it or they just don't want to learn new things. "Dinosaur", for example. But there seems to be a blank space in our way to describe the world for "someone who is not afraid of technology and knows how to use it but chooses not to".

It's like we, as a society, have decided there's no good reason for people who are competent and intelligent and capable of using technology to choose to turn their back on it, so we won't give them a word. Why describe something that makes no sense?

I use technology all the time for my job, and I'm aware of how much it takes from me. In the past, I have let it have a poor effect on my health. I have made a conscious decision to only paddle in the shallow end of the pond, in my personal life, because I want to stay grounded, and I know that the waters further out can carry you away from the shore too rapidly.

I try to do things "old school" as much as possible in my "outside the office" life to make sure I still can - so that I don't end up like the people in Wall-E. I shun technology not because I can't learn to use it (or don't want to), but because I like *not* using it. I'm happier off the leash.

But this year a lot of things are making me realise just how much the businesses I interact with are working on the assumption that everyone is online all the time. Utility companies, banks... heck even the post office is moving inexorably down this path. Their entire business model is based on "of course you'll be using the app on your phone - why wouldn't you?" When you tell them you're not online at home, they look at you like the entire concept is inconceivable.

Then, of course, they assume that you're not online because you don't know how to use the technology, and you'll eventually learn. There's no consideration that you might be offline by choice. This is a lifestyle decision. If I grow my hair into dreadlocks and wear yoga pants, you might get it.

I feel like I've reached a point where I can no longer opt out, as much as I might want to. If I don't swim out into the deep water, I'll find the water at the shallow end has simply dried up.

Against my will, I'm being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. We'll see how long I can maintain the resistance.