This short fantasy novel, recommended to me by a book lovin’ (and sellin’!) friend, is set in a fictitious Ancient China somewhere around the seventh century or so. As the story opens, we are introduced to our narrator, a big lumbering oaf named Lu Yu, called “Number Ten Ox” by his friends. In Ox’s village, the yearly silkworm spinning has just begun, an elaborate procedure that brings the entire village together in work and celebration. But instead of the usual bounty of silk everyone has come to expect, all the silkworms have begun to get sick and die. That’s tragedy enough for a village that depends on the selling of that silk to keep afloat, but things quickly go from crap to shite when, one by one, all the village children also begin to fall ill.

Desperate to find a cure, the villagers send Ox to Peking to try to find a wise man to help. Unfortunately, though the village scraped together all the money they had for this task, it’s still not enough for the experts of Peking. One by one, they laugh Ox’s offer of a few coins off, slamming their doors in his face. Ox is about to give up when he comes across Master Li, a drunken genius with a much-touted “slight flaw in his character.” Master Li agrees to return to the village with Ox, and after studying the situation for a while, figures out both the cause and the solution to the village’s problem. Unfortunately, the solution involves finding the Great Root of Power, which Li believes is the key to a cure for the children, and finding the Great Root will be no easy feat. To that end, Master Li and Ox set out on a series of searches for the Root, traveling from one side of the country to the other, and encountering a vivid and wild collection of gods, monsters, ghosts, wise men, villains, and, for extra kicks, the most expensive woman in the world.

While at first this novel seemed a bit disjointed, like the diseased-children storyline was just a clumsy excuse to spin a series of separate adventure yarns, it became clear by the end that there was actually a fairly elaborate underlying framework to the whole thing — one based on an ancient legend and a children’s rhyme. Even better, though, this novel is simply a blast to read. It’s packed with truly magical descriptions of “an ancient China that never was,” a delightful cast of characters, and loads of satisfying puzzles, relationships, and resolutions. On the surface, Bridge of Birds seems like a straight comic adventure/fantasy story. But the more you read, the more you begin to realize it is also a very poignant tale filled with emotion and warmth. I had a really hard time putting this book down once I started it, and I absolutely fell head-over-heels with both Master Li, the perfect flawed hero for a story like this one, and his lovable and endlessly faithful foil, Number Ten Ox. The only thing that kept me from being completely miserable when it was over was the knowledge that it’s the first in a series. Can’t wait to read Number Two Book about Number Ten Ox! (And hey, Steve, thanks for recommending this one — I really enjoyed it and you totally rule!)

[FANTASY]

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I have a thing for submarine movies.  I’ve loved them ever since the first time I saw Das Boot, which was about fifteen years ago.   It was the director’s cut, so it was, of course, about 87,000 hours long (give or take, though not by much), and it was playing in Seattle at a local theater with surround sound.  I don’t remember anything about the time of year, the time of day, or even who I went with, but I do remember that seeing that movie in a small, dark theater with surround-sound-generated drips and pings coming from all sides made for one of the most thoroughly claustrophobic experiences of my life.  And also, hands-down, one of the most utterly exhilarating ones too.

I would not go so far as to say that the 86 minutes spent watching Silent Venom were anywhere near as insanely great.  HOWEVER, despite the fact I can’t stop calling this movie Snakes on a Sub and then yelling out things like, “I’m tired of these mother-f*cking snakes on this mother-f*cking sub!” to my own inane amusement, this movie wasn’t half bad.

(Well, wait.  Now that I think about it, maybe it was, in fact, exactly half bad, as that would sort of suggest it was also kind of half good.   That sounds about right, as long as your standards for “half good” aren’t very high.)

The story opens with Dr. Andrea Swanson (Krista Allen) and her assistant Jake Golden (Louis Mandylor, who looks like a poor man’s version of his brother Costas but is actually the better actor, if you ask me) hanging out on an island in the Far East doing scientific experiments on the local region’s deadly vipers.

When a couple of the killer snakes get loose and take out some of the locals, the two are ordered to pack up their stuff and wait by the beach for rescue.  Dr. Swanson tells Jake to kill all the snakes except for the two that have been genetically altered, but, smelling money to be made from snake-o-philes, Jake instead packs all the vipers up and smuggles them down to the beach with the rest of their stuff.

Sent to pick them up is a military sub, captained by Lt. Comdr. James O’Neill (Luke Perry!), who is on one last mission before he retires to go spend more time with his family.  Dr. Swanson and Jake load all their equipment — and the badly-secured containers of smuggled snakes — on board the vessel, and away they go.

As he organizes their equipment in the cargo bay, Jake becomes more and more concerned that his secret might get found out.  So, he makes the brilliant decision to pull aside two young sailors and say pointedly and with much stern seriousness, “Whatever you do, DON’T OPEN THESE CASES BECAUSE THEY ARE CLASSIFIED.”   Might as well put a big red button on the wall and label it, “DO NOT PRESS THIS BUTTON OR ELSE!  NO SERIOUSLY, DON’T!”  Because, of course, the minute Jake is out of the room, those dumb kids hit that metaphoric red button with everything they’ve got.  They uncover the first crate they can get their hands on, bust open the lock, and with hisses, growls (yep, the snakes in this movie growl!), and slithers, out come a whooooole lotta cranky reptiles.

From there, the movie moves forward in a fairly predictable manner.  The crew can’t call for help or race to the nearest shore because they’re also being stalked by a Chinese sub and are on silent running (no engines, in other words).  But meanwhile, lots of poor souls on board are being nom-nom-nom’d by deadly vipers.  The Lt. Comdr. and the Dr. team up to try to brainstorm some ways to corral the snakes (and even have a brilliant idea at one point regarding the strategic use of the ship’s heating system — an idea they promptly blow, of course, because they can’t exactly be catching all the snakes 20 minutes into their 86 minute movie).  But the battle gets a little more complicated when the two genetically altered snakes, which have been doubling in size at random intervals and are now INSANELY ENORMOUS, also bust out of their boxes and begin devouring ensigns left and right.  And whole.

If this is a movie that sounds like fun to you, you’re probably going to like it.  The acting is not terrible (except for Tom Berenger, who can’t help it), the story is often hilariously ridiculous (I loved how many scenes in this movie involved someone standing/sitting somewhere completely unaware of the fact a dozen snakes were slithering on and around their feet — apparently, people on submarines never look down), and I’ll be damned if Luke Perry doesn’t look darned good in a Navy uniform.

As far as submarine movies go, you could do a lot better.   But as far as good-bad snakes movies go, you could certainly do much worse (Python 2, anyone?).   Recommended to all fans of the snakes-on-a-vehicle genre.

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Genre:  Horror, Monsters
Cast:  Luke Perry, Krista Allen, Tom Berenger

Out of Africa + City Slickers + Rabbit-Proof Fence + The English Patient + Pretty in Pink – everything that made those movies any good = Australia

Yes, we knew it would be bad.  It’s not like we don’t pay attention.  But we (me and Mom) like swooping epics and we like Australians (seeing as how there are a few in our family that we’re rather fond of), and so we thought maybe there might be SOMETHING to like about this one.  It was definitely lovely, and not just when Hugh Jackman took his shirt off, either (although, if he ever wanted to leave his socks on my living room floor, I certainly wouldn’t complain about it).  It’s beautifully filmed, almost fantasy-like in places.  We’ll give it that much.

But the story is just BAD.  It’s unoriginal (ugh, unbearably so!), it’s surface, it’s trite, it’s cheesy, it’s stupid.  It’s also at least an hour too long — in fact, it’s like two separate stories squished clumsily together and united by the most boringest love scene of all time (and I’ve seen Eyes Wide Shut, people).

Also, the whole Wizard of Oz thing was just silly and forced.  Yes, we get it.  Wizard of OZ.  Subtle as a chainsaw there, Baz.  Jesus. (Unless, of course, there’s some kind of actual, meaningful history regarding that movie and Australia, other than the fact that Dorothy tried to go there once (in Land of Oz, I believe) and fell off the boat along the way.  If there is, do educate me in the comments, my peoples.  It won’t make me like the movie any more, but it might make me hate it a little bit less.)

And with this, I think I can safely now announce for the record that I think Nicole Kidman is the most irritatingly dull actress working today, and that Baz Luhrmann is an overrated hack.  I still love Bryan Brown, though.   And Hugh Jackman, seriously: your socks, my floor.  Any ol’ day of the week.

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Genre:  Drama
Cast:  Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Bryan Brown, the scary guy from Wolf Creek, Brandon Walters (cute kid)

1 – What Were You Thinking?: Christopher Eccleston starring in GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra.  One season as Doctor Who, a couple of episodes on Heroes, and suddenly, he’s relegated to crap like this?  No, Christopher.  NO, I TELL YOU.  THIS CANNOT STAND.

2 – Necessary?: Miley Cyrus wrote a memoir?   Isn’t she, like, 14  years old or something?  http://www.amazon.com/Miles-Go-Miley-Cyrus/dp/1423119924/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247163393&sr=8-1

3 – Ominous: Did you know there’s a television show called Life After People?  I am unnerved by this, not in the least because it seems somewhat moot to work hard at figuring out what will happen to Las Vegas after all the human beings are gone from the planet.  Why would we care?  Won’t we not be here anyway?  I’m confused.  I hate being confused.  Can’t you just go back to showing Band of Brothers reruns in perpetuity instead, History Channel?  Currahee!   http://www.history.com/content/life_after_people

4 – Unspeakable!: After years of taunting us with occasional news reports that MacGyver might be revived in movie format, we’re instead officially brought. . . MacGruber in movie format.  I hate you, Saturday Night Live.  http://www.cinemablend.com/new.php?id=13375

5 – BLAAAAARRRRGH:  Sam Raimi to remake The Evil Dead (and ruin it, I’m assuming, because he’ll actually have a budget this time — money alone will suck half the awesome right out of the whole thing).  Don’t make me hate you, Sam.  I don’t want to, but I WILL.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0434020/

6 – IT WILL NEVER STOP: Saw VI scheduled for release in October 2009.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1233227/.   Talks in progress for Hostel 3 sans Eli Roth, while I’m at it.

7 – And Neither Will This Butthead, Apparently: Joe Jackson hoping to take Michael’s three kids on “Jackson Three” tour?   Bravo, sir.   (Please note that I recognize this may just be a rumor — the source here is not that trustworthy.  However, seems his style, I will confess.)  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31894749/ns/entertainment-access_hollywood/

Those were in no particular order, and I’m sure I missed some.  If you’ve got any horrifying entertainment news to report on, hitten zee comments.

It’s rare that really, really bad monster movies make their way into the mainstream press, so when I started to see stuff about this flick in the newspaper and on some notable entertainment blogs here and there, I got kind of excited about it.  Heck, it even showed up as the topic of a Sally Forth comic strip a couple of weeks ago (see graphic, stage left!).  Reviewers seemed amused and entertained, which is great, but it was enough for me that they were even TALKING about it.  I mean, nobody “real” ever said word-one about Shark Attack 3: The Megalodon, after all, and we all know how BRILLIANT that one ended up being.  If the mainstream media is all abuzz about this one, surely it’s going to be even better?

Do I never learn, or what?  Mainstream media:  you’re fired.

This movie should’ve been a total blast to watch.  After all, it has everything a fan of good-bad movies could ever ask for:  a washed-up 80’s pop singer as the star (Debbie Gibson!), a recognizable bad-movie actor as the co-star (Lorenzo Lamas!), an utterly ridiculous storyline, and a final duke-out between two insanely enormous sea creatures, one of which is a SHARK.

Unfortunately, as it turns out, the filmmakers spent so much money casting their two “famous actors” (ha ha!), they apparently had no budget leftover for the sea creatures.  And since this movie was NOT titled, 80’s Pop Star vs. Mr. Hair, I, for one, think their budgetary priorities were a bit out of order.

The plot (ha ha, again!) unfolds thusly:  Gibson plays Dr. Emma MacNeil, a scientist who is studying the effects of Mozart on whale pods (first sign we might be in trouble:  I’m pretty sure her “Mozart” was actually Bach).  Anyway, she’s up in the Arctic jamming on her classical tunes when she suddenly sees something strange in the water ahead.  Unfortunately, before she has a chance to take a closer look, stuff starts exploding and a helicopter crashes for some reason and no, I have no idea why or what was happening during this scene, but the gist of it was she had to skedaddle, and how.

After she gets back to dry land, strange events begin to surface in the news.  First, reports that a giant shark leapt into the sky and ate an airplane (!!).  Then reports that some kind of enormous sea creature with eight legs chomped its way through an oil rig.  Where normal people might arch an eyebrow and wonder who’s been handing out the hallucinogens at the New York Times, Dr. Debbie immediately thinks, “MEGA SHARK AND GIANT OCTOPUS!!”  Because she is very, very smart, you see.

Where the story goes from there, I confess I can’t really say for sure — it didn’t make a whole lot of sense, I’m afraid.  Dr. Debbie teams up with a few other scientists and does  some complicated science stuff that appeared primarily to involve pouring one Erlenmeyer flask filled with water and food coloring into other another Erlenmeyer flask filled with water and food coloring, while wearing lab goggles and looking ponderous.  It was eventually determined that the mega shark and giant octopus A) had been frozen in the Arctic ice mid-battle and were released, still peeved!, when global warming caused the ice to melt; and B) were on their way to wiping out the planet.

No, don’t ask.  I have no answers for you.  Nor can I tell you why on earth (or anywhere else, for that matter) any sea creature would want to eat an airplane when it would be so much easier just to eat, like, whales and stuff.  No metal exoskeletons, which I can only assume are kind of a beeyotch to digest, mega-intestinal-tract or no.

Anyway, long, long, WAY-too-long story short, the crack team of scientists decide the only way to take out the murderous defrosted beasts is to lure them to the same body of water, where they’ll then take one look at each other and promptly resume their battle to the death (or at least TO THE PAIN — hi, fellow Princess Bride fans!).

As we all know, sharks and octopi hold grudges — man, do they ever! — so, clearly, the plan seems foolproof.  Which, of course, it is not.  However, eventually, everything comes together and the shark and octopus swim, swim, swim their way into the same region of the sea as we all scoot down to the edges of our seats eagerly awaiting what is sure to be the scene that finally makes the rest of this wretched debacle worth talking about.  The camera pans over to the shark.  Then it pans over to the octopus.  Their eyes meet.  Their teeth bare.  Their tentacles push up their sleeves and wind up for a brawl.  The fight at long last begins!  And it is. . .

TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY LAME!

You know why?  Because after spending all their money on actors (and food coloring), there apparently wasn’t enough dough left in the pot for CGI effects or any other super-cool monstery magic.   So, what we end up with is not  monstrous-looking monsters, so much as, like. . . bath toy-looking monsters.  Seriously.  I’ve seen more exciting duels between rubber duckies, and these two yahoos didn’t even look like they’d squeak when you squeezed them.

Crikey, we watched this thing all the way to the end?  I’m speechless.  And while I’m at it, Sally Forth, THANKS FOR NOTHING.

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Genre:  Monsters, Crap
Cast:  Deborah “Don’t Call Me ‘Debbie’ Cuz I’s All Growed Up Now” Gibson, Lorenzo Lamas

Damn, Daniel Craig sure is hot. . .

I have absolutely no idea what this movie was about.

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Genre:  Obfuscation
Cast:  Daniel Craig, The Dame J.D., Mathieu Amalric, Olga Kurylenko, Giancarlo Giannini

I spent the holiday weekend hanging out at my parents’ house, which means I watched a LOT of movies (expect a flurry of reviews over the next few days!).  The first one Mom and I sat down for, though, was the musical West Side Story, which I’ve probably seen 86 bazillion times but not since I was about 14 years old.  We’d both been reminded of it recently and decided it was time for a screening, and so screen it we did.

I wasn’t surprised to find that it’s still pretty great (though not without some flaws and a healthy helping of cheese in places, I will say).  But what did surprise me was how completely different a movie West Side Story is when you’re 35 than it was when you were 14.

You see, when I was a kid watching West Side Story, West Side Story was a movie about tragic romance.  And that was ALL it was a movie about.  The whole film was Maria and Tony to me — the way they looked at each other, the way they kissed, the agony of what happens to them, the desperate desire to experience love that intense some day (though one would hope less tragic — so far, so good).

As an adult, on the other hand, the romance part of the film became almost a minor subplot for me, in part because it seemed a lot more ridiculous as an adult than it did as a kid (love at first sight — feh), but also because there were too many other elements of the movie that were far more captivating.   When the movie first started, I was almost immediately obsessed with the sets and the dancing, for example, both of which are phenomenal.  But it didn’t take long before I had moved from there into total fascination with the elements of the story involving the clash between the whites of New York City and the Puerto Ricans sharing the same streets.

As a kid, the racism story didn’t really exist to me at all in WSS, believe it or not — I had no context in which to place it, having no direct experiences or even a vague understanding that people were different and their differences caused friction.  I got that the Jets and Sharks didn’t like each other, but I didn’t really get why, nor, for that matter, did I actually care.

All grown up, and with discrimination experiences both witnessed in the real world and absorbed from additional films and books, that aspect of the story became my primary focus.   And it’s because of that that I spent most of the second half of the film thinking about another movie I’d been meaning to rewatch recently — Spike Lee’s 1989 film Do the Right Thing.

I hadn’t seen Do the Right Thing since high school, when I was moderately obsessed with it.  It had been back on my radar recently because it’s just been rereleased on DVD to celebrate its 20th anniversary (damn, I’m old).  So, on the train ride home, I gave it a fresh gander, and, wonder of wonders, I spent most of those two hours thinking about West Side Story.   It might just be coincidence and timing, but watching both movies in a single weekend was a striking experience.  It’s quite amazing, really, how similar they truly are.

First, the obvious:  Both are about race relations in New York City.  For West Side Story, it’s the whites versus the Puerto Ricans.  Thirty years later in Do the Right Thing, it’s the Italians versus the African Americans (with a Korean family thrown in for good measure).  In both movies, the two cultures are sharing a neighborhood and struggling with their own separate identity and class issues.  And in both movies, the two cultures come together, clash, separate, come together, clash, and separate, until finally tempers go from a simmer to a roiling boil and horrific tragedy ensues.

Second, the also-obvious:  music plays a huge role in both films as well.  This is obvious for West Side Story, since it’s a musical.  But the songs in West Side Story do more than just provide the beat for some wicked cool ballet-infused street dancing — instead, they serve as the primary vehicle for the delivery of some of the most important elements of the characters involved.

Music so often seems to be the way singers or songwriters “talk” about the things they otherwise might struggle to express, and that’s certainly true for the Jets and the Sharks in WSS.  When they aren’t singing, they’re all about  posturing and pretending to be tough.   But listen to the lyrics for “America,” sung on a rooftop by the Puerto Rican Sharks and their girlfriends, a song that alternately slaps and embraces both their new and their old countries, detailing their conflicted emotions regarding their lives in each place.  (By the way, Moreno’s throatily-delivered line “Smoke on your pipe and put THAT in” still makes me laugh out loud.  She’s so cool.)

And then, to balance that out, check out the lyrics for “Gee, Officer Krupke,” the Jets song that is essentially a gallows humor tune from a group of boys just starting to enter adulthood after a lifetime spent with broken parents in broken homes, struggling to find their place in a world that seems to blame them for everything that’s wrong (as Doc says at one point, “When do you kids stop?  You make this world lousy!”).  Both songs let us in — way in.  Way inside what’s really going on for the players on this stage.

Music isn’t used in quite the same way in  Do the Right Thing, but it’s still there, and still powerful.  The primary tune for this film is “Fight the Power,” the Public Enemy song perpetually blasting from Radio Raheem’s boom box.  That boom box is practically a character itself, really, traveling through the streets of the inner city, blasting “Power to the people, no delay!” and inciting off and on and off and on the same two feelings Raheem wears in gold on his knuckles:  LOVE and HATE.  That same boom box playing that same song also ends up being one of the initiating triggers of the violence at the end of the movie, giving it even more weight in terms of its importance to the story.

“Fight the Power” is a phrase repeated over and over in Chuck D’s song, and teamed up with the rhythmic clash and energizing engagement of the beats behind it, it serves as a rallying cry for the collective struggle of the characters in the film.  It’s not a song about violence; it’s not about that kind of fighting.  Instead it’s a song about “mental self-defensive fitness.”  “People, people we are the same,” the song says, then reverses itself:  “No we’re not the same, ’cause we don’t know the game.  What we need is awareness, we can’t get careless. . . Make everybody see, in order to fight the powers that be.”  How do two distinct groups of people coexist, especially when one group treats the other group like it’s either invisible or merely in the way and refuses to recognize they might have a positive contribution to make too?  The song urges those who listen to it to MAKE people see those contributions.  And the challenge, then — in both movies, really –  lies in figuring out the best or most effective way to do that (a never-ending debate neatly summed up at the end of Do the Right Thing by the zooming-in of the camera on a photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. shaking hands with Malcolm X).

I also wanted to point out the striking use of color in both films.  The sets in West Side Story are quite deliberately colored, right down to the paint on the cars lining the streets.  There’s a fascinating juxtaposition in that film of the bright primary colors and schoolyards of youth and the darker colors and switchblades of adulthood.  And, of course, there’s heavy use of the color red, which might not be the most original foreshadowing technique of all time, but it’s still an effective one for sure.

In Do the Right Thing, colors also play a huge part.  Scenes are saturated with reds, oranges, yellows, and other “hot” colors that make us instinctively feel the temperature of both the weather (it’s the hottest day of the year in the film) and the escalating emotions of the characters in the story.    As the heat rises and the oranges intensify, so too do the tempers, until inevitably, the neighborhood quite literally catches on fire.

Now, in case the use of music and color for specific effect is too generic a comparison (after all, many movies do that sort of thing), I wanted to point out that I also saw sharp parallels between two of the films’ primary characters:  Anita in WSS and Mookie in DtRT.   Both characters are the even-tempered ones all through the pictures, the ones that seemed to walk with relative acceptance in both worlds.   And in both cases, they end up triggering the final act of violence, after something terrible happens right in their face that makes it impossible for them to continue not to (re)act.  For Anita, that event comes when she’s attacked and nearly sexually assaulted by Tony’s gang after walking into their territory to try to deliver a message from Maria to Tony.  Terrified and enraged, her response is to pass on a lie instead of Maria’s actual message, and it’s that lie that gets Tony killed.

In DtRT, it’s Mookie, who spends the whole movie trying to keep the two sides from killing each other, only to succumb to a final straw and launch a garbage can through Sal’s window (while yelling the word from Raheem’s left hand, “HAAAAATE!”), the act that finally triggers a full-on riot in the streets.

(Oh, and also playing the part of major triggers in the escalation in violence in both films?  Racist cops.  Some things never change, sadly.)

I could probably continue with this review all damn day, but I’m sure this has already gone on way too long for most of you.  Sorry about that!   In any case, it was a pretty amazing experience watching both these movies together, not to mention an experience that has obviously weighed heavily on me ever since.   If nothing else, it was pretty damn disheartening to discover that we’ve been dealing with the same issues in our neighborhoods for over 30 years with very little hope of permanent resolution.  The cultures and races in the wars may change, but the wars themselves don’t appear to.

So, if it’s been a while since you’ve seen either of these two films, and you’re in the mood for something thoughtful, I heartily recommend this as a double-feature.  If you have teenage kids, make ‘em watch with you — maybe theirs will be the generation that finally figures this damn thing out.

And if you read all the way down to the bottom of this review, you get an A+ and my devotion for life.  For realz.

[Netflix WSS | Netflix DtRT | Buy WSS | Buy DtRT]

Genre:  Musical, Drama
Cast for WSS:  Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita ILOVEYOU! Moreno, George Chakiris
Cast for DtRT:  Spike Lee, Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, John Turturro, Bill Nunn, Ruby Dee, Giancarlo Esposito

Tall, scruffy, Canadian, AND left-handed.

I’d say more, but I might lose my composure.  Can’t be having that, no sir.

Go read it and then come back here to chat!

http://megwood.com

I read this novel for the first time when I was about fourteen years old. My mother was a Faulkner fan, and I wanted to be as cool as my moms, yo, so I picked it up and, lo and behold, devoured it in a single weekend. A year later, I read it again, much more slowly, gradually becoming more and more intoxicated by its language and its ideas. Over the next six or so years, I worked my way through every single Faulkner novel and short story I could find, and at this point in my life, I would be surprised if there is a single thing written by the man that I have not read. And read more than once, at that.

In college, I took a lit course in which we read Absalom! Absalom!, the novel I typically cite as my all-time favorite book, and most of the discussion that week focused on how everybody but me hated Faulkner with a vengeance. Personally, I attribute this to the fact they all had been forced to read The Sound and the Fury in high school. Of all the Faulkners, S&F is my least favorite, and it would never, ever be the one I suggested someone start out with. I assume teachers always pick it because the first section is such a shining example of the stream-of-consciousness style. But it’s also a total bitch to grasp and an INSANE downer (not that the others are cheery, mind you), and the combination seems to turn people off so fast they never go back and try anything else. A crying shame, I tell you. Because William Faulkner was a genius. Ain’t no bones about it.

For those that managed to escape this one in high school and therefore have no idea what it’s about, The Sound and the Fury tells the story of the Compson family and is split into four sections, each narrated by a different family member. The first section is told from Benjy Compson’s point of view — a 33 year old man-boy with fairly severe mental retardation. The second is set about 20 years earlier and is told from the point of view of Benjy’s brother Quentin, who is one of the most heartbreakingly broken people of all time. The third is told from Quentin’s brother Jason’s perspective — he’s an asshole. And the final section is written in the third person and focuses primarily on the Compson family’s black servant, Dilsey, who is, not-so-coincidentally, the only character in the novel who isn’t a total disaster.

These are all miserable, broken people, (except for Dilsey, who is a rock of awesome) and this novel essentially tells the story of the horrible sufferings and tragedies of each of their lives. In essence, if you get into this novel deeply enough to understand what’s going on, your reward for making all that effort is a steaming pile of misery. So you can see, then, why this might not inspire further exploration of Faulkner for many people.

But for me, at the maudlin age of 14, it was absolutely life-shattering. For one thing, it was the first time I’d ever read anything that attempted to take me into the mind of someone with mental disabilities (Benjy, obviously, but also Quentin in his own damaged way), and Faulkner was so effective at it I was utterly enthralled pretty much from page one. Damn. Brilliant.

The novel also serves, as all Faulkner novels do, as one giant metaphor for the deterioration and self-destruction of the South after the Civil War. The Compsons’ lives are constantly being intruded upon by the past (which, as Faulkner writes in Requiem for a Nun, “isn’t dead; it isn’t even past), and no matter how they thrash and struggle, there is never any freedom from it. Even when the Compsons make sacrifices to try in some way to atone for their history, those sacrifices only come back to bust them in the chops in the most painful and tragic of ways. The Compsons are like a fish caught in a net — the more they fight, the more tightly they become bound. And their fate? Also that of the fish, I’m afraid.

This focus on the past, this need to subject it to constant scrutiny and never, ever unhitch it, is hallmark Faulkner, and it, more than anything else you will ever read or see or hear (in my opinion, anyway), will teach you everything you need to know about the impact of the Civil War on our nation. Faulkner’s novels were my first introduction to the Civil War as a actual force — a force that wrought upon this country some of the most completely irrevocable grief of all time. It has always felt to me like Faulkner’s entire works represent his attempt to tell the same story over and over and over, never being satisfied with the way it came out. Yoknapatawpha County, the fictitious setting of many of Faulkner’s books, is like an open wound that’s never allowed to heal. It is a thing that represents both excruciating pain and unfailing courage. It is a sad thing. And a beautiful one.

Oh, stop. I hate talking about Faulkner. I think I love it, and then I start doing it and I hate it. I feel like everything I say comes out wrong and sounds absolutely idiotic. And besides, you either love the guy or you hate him, and I’m pretty sure there is little I can say that will swing you from one side to the other. That said, if you’ve always wanted to try a Faulkner novel and never known where to start, the one I usually recommend is Intruder in the Dust, because it’s a courtroom drama and thus is sort of like Law & Order meets Dusty Old White Literary Dude With Chip on His Shoulder. It’s much more traditionally entertaining and accessible than many of Faulkner’s other novels, but it still gives you a solid introduction to his writing style and themes.

From there, if you want to know what I’d read next, you know where to find me. Someday, and I’ll make that someday soon now that I think about it, I hope that where you’ll find me is in Oxford, Mississippi, hanging out somewhere with a cup of coffee and a book while I breathe in the same air that went in and out of the lungs of Billy F.once not that long ago. And then set his heart on fire.

“Between grief and nothing, I’ll take grief.”  — Harry Wilbourne in Faulkner’s The Wild Palms.

[LITERATURE]

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I wasn’t going to post about Michael Jackson’s death, because, frankly, it hit me extremely hard, and I’ve been sort of taken aback by that.  Even worse, while I’ve been grieving for the loss of the man who first made me love music — and I mean LOVE MUSIC! — I’ve been forced to encounter over and over the crass comments of assholes everywhere who seem to think it’s funny and/or good he’s dead.

And so, for that reason, I’m STILL not really going to post about Michael Jackson’s death.  And I would appreciate it if the only comments left here are comments of respect and remembrance, and not dickishness.  Thanks.

However, I just put up a status update on Facebook encouraging everybody who sees it to immediately drop what they’re doing and MOONWALK wherever they are.  Without shame!  And I want you guys in on the action! Facebook/Blog FLASH MOB is a GO!

Here’s what I want you to do:  the minute you see this post — the very minute! –  jump up and doo the Moonwalk.  I don’t care where you are — in your office, in the street, checking your iPhone in the supermarket. If you’re embarrassed, go in the bathroom and lock the door.  It doesn’t matter.

Just go do it!  Everybody!!  Then post in comments below where you were when you busted out your moves, and whether the act of doing it made you laugh with immeasurable joy.  Because that is what Michael Jackson used to do for me every time I saw him dance.

Peace out, MJ.  YOU MADE A DIFFERENCE IN MY LIFE and I hope wherever you end up next, it will be a happier place for you.

p.s. Need a refresher on the Moonwalk?  YouTube is your friend.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7MmEMrCRfc