And the Next Contender Is...?

I did it. I finished The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, heart only somewhat intact. I've already intimated that my reluctance to read this book was entirely unfounded, and my opinion hasn't changed. I was an idiot to wait this long to enter the world of Liesel, Rudy, Max, and, of course, Death.

The Book Thief is also a reminder that there is no need to pander to children and young adults.

And so a fad spawns a rather specific genre.

Yes, the subject matter of The Book Thief is dark. But kids know life is dark. Even if their griefs can be comparatively small, their emotions and their tears are quite real. And as they grow, they are introduced to more and more of the world's darkness through the heartbreaks of personal experience--or they can just turn on the news.

I just look at one of the books that has stuck in my ribcage since childhood: The Giver by Lois Lowry. That incredibly talented woman didn't shy away from the difficult issues of the false utopia she created, and Jonas' story remains as influential and controversial as it was 18 years ago. What about The Hunger Games? Harry Potter? It's obvious that kids, "tweens," and teenagers aren't afraid of encountering adversity in theirs books--on the contrary, they crave stories in which their peers overcome it.

Not only does The Book Thief refrain from pandering to a too-oft underestimated age group in subject matter, but Zusak has also produced an incredibly well-written book. Death's POV is cynical, humorous, gentle, insightful, and always poignant. Even when told by an inhuman narrator, the story never loses its humanity.

Which is probably why I loved the book. I'm a sucker for well-written characters. I connect with them. I bond with them. They become my friends. (Yes, I'm that kind of reader.) I finished the book while on my afternoon break.

And I exhaled. I had no words, just breath hissing through my teeth.

Thankfully, I wasn't required to converse with anyone until I had somewhat recovered.

My time in the world of The Book Thief is over. It was a heavy book. Beautiful, but heavy, as were the two books that preceded it on The List (The Satanic Verses and The Life of Pi.) It's time for a change. So I took a second look at The List, and did a quick estimation of my emotional stability at this point in time.

It's time for some fun. So I decided to pick my wild card: Castle Waiting, a comic series by Linda Medley. The same friend who recommended it to me also told me that I can read the series in installments--maybe, once I recover from the emotional turmoil of my previous choices, I'll mix in a more serious book. So we'll see.

With a heavier heart and a richer life, I leave you with the moral of the story: read The Book Thief.

The List

So in a recent-ish post, I talked about life on the reading list. It keeps getting longer and longer--having wonderfully avid readers for friends and family means I keep getting recommendations. And, yes, I pay attention to them. And, yes, I have a habit of buying myself books. In the grand scheme of things, books are a cheap vice. Especially when one buys them used on Amazon, works in a publishing company, and has a library card. Or when one goes to a used book sale and walks away with 15 books (only 3 of them previously read) for $14...

It was a proud moment.

But, awhile back, as I waited rather impatiently for the arrival of yet another book, I realized that I should probably take stock of the books I own and have not yet read. And, for the reasons stated above, the number was hefty.

Hi, my name is Alicia, and I have a problem. 

To be honest, I'm not actually concerned with the number of books that I own--I think the Beast's gift to Belle of his library is the epitome of love, and it's a gift that I've always wanted for myself. But I'm not waiting for a fairy tale to get that library when I can read one from my very own leather-bound copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales (true story). To me, every book I buy is an investment in my happiness.

So, the list--how does it work? To get myself started, I used one of those ubiquitous "100 Books Everybody Should Read" lists--I think this particular one is either from The Guardian or the BBC. That helped (and still helped) me cover the classics, as well as a few popular novels I might have ignored. (Which is why The Time Traveler's Wife and Cold Mountain were two books I picked up at the used book sale.)

Then I mix in classics of the sci-fi/fantasy genre that I feel I need to read. In Yokosuka, when I first started reading fantasy, the book selection wasn't great. And then, due to my struggling with my preference for fantasy in high school, I've actually missed out on a lot of the "greats," filling my bookshelf with good, but rather not well-known, books and series instead.

On top of all that, I add in books that have been recommended to me, just look interesting, or suit whatever my current whimsy is. The result is a bit of a hodgepodge, but I feel like the miscellany of it all keeps my interest in reading fresh--I never weigh myself down by reading too many books of the genre in a row. I also try to keep it as fluid as possible, giving myself options within genre, so I don't ever feel like I "have" to read something, because that only stirs the adolescent rebellion and stubbornness in me. (Similar reasoning wisely prevents me from dieting.) The list ends up looking something like this:

The Current List:
1. Currently reading: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2. YA Novels: either What Came from the Stars by (the world famous author) Gary Schmidt or Looking for Alaska by John Green
3. Classic: either 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne or Evelina by Frances Burney
4. Sci-Fi/Fantasy "Classic:" either The Dark Tower by Stephen King or The Earthsea Quartet by Ursula K. LeGuin
5. Literary: either Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson or On Beauty by Zadie Smith
6. Wild cards: Castle Waiting (a collection of a comic book series recommended to me by a friend) by Linda Medley, The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (which I abandoned half-finished a year ago due to lack of time) or Lifespan of a Fact (a fascinating book on the construction of a "nonfiction" essay) by John D'Agata and Jim Fingal

Of course, this could all change on a whim or upon discovery of a new book. But this keeps me (somewhat) focused and the actual list to a (somewhat) manageable appearance.

Shattering My Own Illusions, Or A Hobby

If you've read my review of Jim the Boy, you'll know that I unintentionally approach books with preconceptions...which are often quickly revealed to be grave misconceptions. I know, I know, my fallibility is astounding. And the presumptuousness of my innate need to interpret texts! How daring.

What I probably shouldn't admit is just how often my misconceptions about books are revealed even as they shatter. Over the past month or so, I've read two books and started another, all of which have challenged my preconceived notions of what is what. So it's been on my mind. A lot.

The first book is The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I remember my mom reading it and my brother reading it, and they both enjoyed it. I don't know why I resisted their recommendations and translated their feelings into "Ugh. No thanks." Maybe it was just my bad attitude talking. Maybe it's because I was still bitter about being forced to read 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, both of which I despised on first encounter. (I've since revised my opinion on 100 Years of Solitude. Wuthering Heights not so much.) Whatever the reason, the "Ugh. No thanks." response lasted until a few weeks ago.

Then I read it. And I found depth tempered by absurdity (I don't know why I was so surprised--the basic concept in itself is wonderfully ridiculous). And, of course, there was the mindf*** of an ending. (I apologize for the crudeness of that highly technical term.) I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a huge fan of high-brow-ish literature (short attention span and an impatience with self-aggrandizement), but I enjoyed Life of Pi. So much so, it finally pushed me to climb a literary mountains I've put off reading for over a year.

That mountains was the second book--The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. I'll preen my feathers a bit here: I enjoyed Midnight's Children, and Haroun and the Sea of Stories is one of my favorite books. So I guess I can say I like Rushdie's work. But I knew that The Satanic Verses wasn't going to be on par with my previous experiences with him--even people who like his work warned me that they didn't enjoy this particular book. So I had no preconception that I was going to love it, but that's not why I wanted to read it. Actually, it's been on my list out of sheer curiosity--I wanted to see what the fuss (intentional understatement) was all about.

I already knew Rushdie to be an outspoken critic of Islam, but, to be honest, prejudice inclined me to expect it blown out of proportion. And I'm sorry for that. Do I think it deserved the fatwa, the call for his death? Absolutely not. But did I find his depiction of Muhammad and Islam offensive and disrespectful? Yes--it even felt almost catty at times. I understand the chip in Rushdie's shoulder, but I also understand the outrage his work caused, though I think extremists took their reactions way too far. But don't Christian fundamentalists do the same thing? Every natural disaster is followed by *someone* (I don't think I have to name names here) blaming tragedy on a people group they don't agree with.

To cut off any commentary before it starts: to my knowledge, I don't think any Christian leader has called for someone's death in response to a piece of art in recent-ish times. But before we get all self-congratulatory, remember that the afore-not-mentioned person, as well as many other prominent Christian leaders, only fuel the divisiveness, hatred, and bigotry that has stained and continues to stain the Church.

Now where was I? Ah, yes, The Satanic Verses. Now I feel like I can bring at least a slightly more nuanced understanding to the topic, my curiosity is satisfied, and another misconception has met its rightful end.

The book that has my current attention is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Like Life of Pi, it was recommended to me by several knowledgeable and trustworthy parties, but I avoided it. Unlike Life of Pi, however, I know exactly why I've said "No thanks" up until now. You see, the cynic in me is wary of books focusing on enormous tragedies and horrors of human history, particularly the Holocaust. As someone who's studied the history through texts and photographs and wandered horror-struck through a concentration camp, I shudder at the thought of this atrocity (words really can't convey the enormity of it) being forgotten. And powerful, beautiful art has arisen from the need to remember it, to bring it to life for generations to follow--I was particularly touched by Trial of God by Elie Wiesel, a fictionalized account of a trial of God conducted in a Jewish ghetto. But I also think that there is too much temptation to exploit horror for plot. Maybe I'm being overly paranoid and protective of a history that isn't mine to tell, but I also can't shake the feeling that there's a truth in that suspicion. After all, we slow down to look at car accidents, even though a better part of us tells us not to.

I haven't finished the book yet, so I'll withhold my final judgment of The Book Thief (and no spoiler alerts, please!). But so far (300+ pages in), it's different. It's special.

These misconceptions are part of the reason that I assign myself reading list. I never want to stop expanding my comfort zone, in life and in my bookshelf.

Of course, I have no problem expanding my book collection. Ah, the list grows ever on and on, down from the shelf where it began... Extra awesome points if you get the reference.

One Girl's Descent into Magical Realism

Maybe if I was one of those manic pixie dream girls with clothes from Goodwill and an interest in obscure socio-political issues, this geek girl blog thing would be a cinch.

Not pictured: Me

Too bad my inability to take myself seriously, impatience with actual shopping, and aversion to organized ideology (my faith excepted...most of the time) kinda prevents me from descending into that exhausting stereotype. And oddball curvy cynic girls don't have a market yet. Damn. But with this whole geek-chic phenomena, I had to ask myself: am I really a geek?

The other day, a coworker asked me why I like Lord of the Rings. That should be an easy question for me--practically rhetorical. It is, after all, pretty much the foundation of my geekdom.

But I had no answer for her. At least, not right away.

My (over)fondness for Lord of the Rings is assumed, so embedded in my identity that it's probably (actually) frightening. But why? What set it apart from the thousands of other books I've read (and reread) and the hundreds of other movies I've watched (and rewatched)?

These questions took me into the often not-so-fun territory of Introspection Land. I'm a semi-permanent resident, but with these questions, I was heading directly into the territory I try to avoid as much as possible. But I had to know.

Lord of the Rings first entered my life when I was five, and transitioning from the sweet girl of yesteryear to the absolute terror I still am today. (This is no exaggeration--just ask my mother.) My uncle Mark gave my brother a boxed set of the trilogy and The Hobbit--editions we still own today (what a great gift!). I tried reading The Hobbit a year or two later. I remember sitting in the parking lot of the Pentagon, paperback in hand. But, even as a precocious six- or seven-year-old, I didn't get through it. It went back to the shelf, half unread.

Fast forward four-ish years and across three continents. At this point in the story, I was a brash-yet-timid middle schooler, suddenly unsure of myself as my elementary school popularity disappeared in a new school in a new country. Over the next three years, I would develop adolescent insecurities into full-blown anxiety, holding myself to impossible moral, physical, and social ideals, and then castigating myself for my inevitably continual failures. It's a pattern I still have yet to escape.

I know what you're thinking: How is this not the pinnacle of physical perfection?

Now that's a pretty bleak picture. It's taken me years to fully appreciate the lasting impact those years have had on my identity. But I realized, as I contemplated Lord of the Rings, that I have dwelt almost exclusively on the negatives. And that isn't fair. It isn't fair to the people and places and things that have given me joy. And it isn't fair to me to dwell in the dark places--it just keeps me in the aforementioned self-destructive pattern.

Lord of the Rings is, without a doubt, a thing that has given me joy. The books and movies provide an escape for my heartsick soul--I still watch parts of the movies and listen to the soundtracks when I'm upset. But the it's so much more than that--they also represent unbelievably bright spots in my adolescences and (now, I guess) adulthood.

For me, Lord of the Rings represents my community. My two greatest friends--I'll call them S and C--in middle school (who are now awesome women) were also Lord of the Rings fans. I spent many lunches in a teacher's classroom playing LotR Trivial Pursuit with S. C and I howled over the badly translated subtitles of her The Two Towers DVD. I stood in line for hours with my brother and other friends to catch the belated premiere of Return of the King at the Benny Decker Theater. One of my favorite nights with my dad in middle school involved pizza dinner, followed by him purchasing me the soundtrack for The Two Towers. To this day, my mom and I skip chick flicks and watch the extended editions when I'm home for the holidays. During my sophomore year in college, my girlfriends and I bonded with a group of guys (one of them a YMS alum) over a Lord of the Rings marathon, a bond that was sealed by two years of living in the same apartment building and a beautiful wedding this past summer.

Lord of the Rings also represents a new world that was opened to me in middle school--the genre of fantasy. Lord of the Rings and David Eddings' Polgara the Sorceress (a joy first introduced to me by the aforementioned joy, my friend S) and their worlds got under my skin. My love for fantasy was born. By the time I left Yokosuka, I had even begun to write my own work.

Of course, my love of reading, writing, and watching fantasy hasn't always made things easy for me. In high school, it set me apart (compounding my non-Southern background). I was stifled and challenged for it in that conservative environment. I wrestled with that love, and many other things, emerging spiritually exhausted. During that time, Lord of the Rings was hope for me as a Christian writer of fantasy (not a writer of Christian fantasy--big difference). See! I told myself. It can happen. Christianity can produce fantastical culture, instead of running away from it. (Disclaimer: I love The Chronicles of Narnia, yes, but Lewis' creative allegory just didn't have quite the same effect on me.)

So I stuck with it. And I've written a complete, not-terrible fantasy novel, something I'm so unbelievably proud of. Fantasy has become my passion, vocation, and creative joy. God has given me this love, and time after time, He uses it to pull me out of the dark places of my life. It's not something I would've chosen for myself at age eleven--but He gave it to me anyway.

Now, ten or so years after middle school, I'm still brash-yet-timid. I still struggle with anxiety. I like hard rock, hot coffee, dark chocolate, and I own more t-shirts than I need. So no, I'm not a manic pixie dream girl. I'm not sure if I am anyone's dream girl.

But I am a geek. And, to be honest, I don't know where I'd be without that part of myself. So, for now, I'll rejoice that being a geek is somewhat socially acceptable. I don't know how long that bubble will last, but when it bursts, I'll still be there. Quoting Lord of the Rings.