Casting in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Suzanne Collin's book, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, explores the origins of President Coriolanus Snow and of the Hunger Games. While the book is filled with references to the original trilogy, it feels more like a manufactured history than a compelling story.

Despite my initial skepticism, which was based on casting that I saw in the trailers, I wanted to see the movie so I could hear the songs. The songs were indeed great, and to my surprise, I enjoyed the movie. The screenwriter crafted a well-paced adaptation of the novel. However, some casting choices and certain gaps in storytelling may confuse viewers unfamiliar with the source material.

Casting Critiques

The teenage characters were played by older actors. This wasn’t necessary, as there were no sexually explicit scenes to justify such casting.

Lucy Gray Baird: Rachel Zegler's singing is fantastic, but the orphaned entertainer from the poorest district in Panem is not who we see on the screen. Lucy’s vivid clothing and heavy makeup, which should evoke an unsophisticated performer's gaudy flair, are muted in the film. Zegler’s demeanor is too polished, lacking the grit and passion of the young woman in the book.

In the book, we spend most of the Games wondering where Lucy is and what she is doing. Coriolanus can only watch the Games on television; there are few cameras in the arena and fewer microphones. So, like Coriolanus during the Games, we worry about her, and like Coriolanus after the Games, we wonder uncomfortably about the killing she had to do to survive the Games. In the movie, Lucy Gray is uncomplicated: a girl fighting for her life. We don't have doubts or questions about her motivations.

Reaper: The casting of Dimitri Abold was good, but his character received little screen time.

For me, Reaper is the most intriguing and most frustratingly undeveloped character in both the book and the movie. Suzanne Collins leaves us to speculate what inspired his change of strategy in the book. Before the Games, Reaper apologizes to each of the other tributes for having to kill them and, when he first enters the arena, he is still prepared to kill them. However, in the end, he kills no one. Instead he creates a "makeshift morgue" covering the dead tributes' bodies with the flag of Panem. (In the movie, this occurs immediately after the death of the little girl from his district, Dill.)

In the movie, he dies bravely. I didn't mind that he dies much earlier in the movie than in the book, but I wanted some insight into his character. There is no indication of his internal struggle or shift in strategy.

Coral from District 4: Mackenzie Lansing steals Reaper's spotlight by being a believable bully. In the movie, her dying words, "I couldn't have killed them all for nothing," echo Cato's realization in the first Hunger Games movie. (In the book, Coral is literally a backstabber, but her role in the book is much smaller than it is in the movie.)

Dean Casca Highbottom: Peter Dinklage’s portrayal could have been stellar if only he had better direction. The character of Highbottom in the book is beaten down and passive aggressive. He has spent years nursing feelings of resentment and drugging his guilty conscience for the barbaric Games. He resents his own choices in life, blaming Coriolanus's father for them. His venom for Coriolanus is fully revealed only when they are alone together.

Dr. Volumnia Gaul: Viola Davis is stunning as Dr. Gaul! Suzanne Collins never convinced me that Dr. Gaul was a real person, but Viola Davis did. The actress isn't an old, stooped woman as described in the books, but she is a compelling presence. (Her name suggests she’s even more barbaric than others in the Capitol.)

Sejanus Plinth: I liked Josh Rivera, but the actor seemed too old to play a high school student, and the movie script transformed him into a confident and clever adult. In the book, he was an angsty teenager; a kid with a good moral compass, but immature and weak. Since we see him only from Coriolanus's perspective in the book, readers may find Sejanus frustrating, even though we know he is in the right. In the movie, we are free to like him-- which I did. (Suzanne Collins wrote Katniss in the first person; why did she write Coriolanus in the third?)

Tigris Snow: Hunter Schafer is the only actor I wholeheartedly love in the movie. She plays a young woman thrilled with fashion and grateful to her employer, as well as a thoughtful advisor, a protective mother-figure, a compassionate human, and, most beautifully, a woman saddened by shameful things she had to do to survive. In the book, Coryo fails to truly recognize Tigris's worth, even though he relies on her for good advice, guidance, and support. In the movie, we never doubt that she loves her younger cousin. We get to see mature Tigris, loyal, compassionate, and loving. We also have the opportunity to see her recognize Coryo’s dark transformation. (We know that Tigris-- not Tigress-- later emulates cats in her fashion choices, but I wonder why Suzanne Collins named her after a river where an ancient non-Roman civilization developed?)

Gradma'am: Fionnula Flanagan shines as the family's matriarch. In the books, she is deteriorating mentally and physically, but in the movie she clearly portrays the primary (and darkest) influence on Coriolanus’s world view and character.

Lucretius "Lucky" Flickerman: Jason Schwartzman's character highlights that the Games’ are just in their formative stages. The movie character is more competent and professional, but the movie still conveys his shallowness. (What is that pin he's wearing during the Games?)

Hilarius Heavensbee: Florian Burgkart as Hilarius Heavensbee is barely more than an extra. The character in the book is surprisingly forgettable, except for the name he shares with Plutarch Heavensbee who plays such a large role in the rebellion of The Hunger Games trilogy.

Pluribus Bell: Not every character in a book can be included in a movie adaptation, but I wish Pluribus Bell had received a cameo. Pluribus was a bit of light in a dark story. I wondered at his motivation for his support the Snow family. Did he recognize that "Snow lands on top" or was he simply a good guy and a friend of the family?

Coriolanus Snow: While no one could emulate Donald Sutherland's smile, Tom Blyth and the director could have at least tried to show the charm that was Coriolanus's original weapon of choice. I don't see a strong physical resemblance between Tom Blyth and Donald Sutherland, who played the older Coriolanus Snow, but his facial features would have been irrelevant if he had convincingly portrayed Coriolanus Snow's character.

Story Telling Critiques

Despite knowing what kind of person Coriolanus eventually becomes, readers of the book find themselves hoping that Coriolanus's good traits will triumph over his bad ones. The movie obscures those bad traits, and viewers who are unfamiliar with the series may be surprised by his actions at the end of the movie. The film also fails portray the two potentially life changing relationships in his story: with Sejanus and with Lucy. I never believed in the romance with Lucy Gray. That love should have been showcased in the movie and been the point at which Coriolanus becomes Snow.

The movie attempts to draw parallels between Coriolanus and Katniss (of the original Hunger Games series) by highlighting their shared experiences of hunger, the struggle to survive, and the loss of parents. Unlike Katniss, he doesn't take care of others, he doesn't recognize what he owes other people, he doesn't have friends, and he doesn't reflect on his motives. Why did the writer and director feel they needed to invent a similarity between Coriolanus and Katniss? (And why, as in a previous movie, did they again present the false narrative that Suzanne Collins implies is disinformation: Dr. Gaul, not the rebels, bombed the arena, just as Alma Coin, not President Snow, arranged the hospital bombing in District 8.)

In the book, Coriolanus Snow's character is already deeply flawed before the events of the story unfold. Raised as an elite Capitol citizen, he has a sense of entitlement and superiority. Despite his family's financial struggles, he strives to maintain an image of power and wealth, driven by a desire for control and dominance.

Coriolanus feels no gratitude and has no sense of indebtedness to those who have helped him, seeing favors and kindness only as opportunities to further his ambitions. He watches and tries to understand other people, but his relationships are calculated, aimed at maintaining his status and securing his future. He lacks both empathy and a moral compass, viewing people as tools to be manipulated. His friendship with Sejanus is deception and his love for Lucy Gray is possessive rather than selfless, showing his inability to form genuine connections.

His indoctrination and inherent ruthlessness, as described in the books, make readers realize that no amount of love or influence could have redeemed him. The film doesn't show those aspects of his character.

In the book, Tigris gives us a hint of his childhood innocence. “I keep wondering how it came to this. That my baby cousin, who wouldn’t hurt a fly, has to fight for his life in the arena... I just hate what they’re doing to you."

Since Coriolanus lacks self awareness, a reader may not recognize that he is a fundamentally bad person until the end of the story when he embraces Dr. Gaul’s mentorship. The movie does not show his deep character flaws, and that may leave viewers still wondering why he turned into a bad person. Before the denouement in the movie, we have no indication of his character until his Anakin Skywalker moment, when he tells Tigris that killing Bobbin, one of the tributes, "felt powerful."

The film progresses faster than the book but fails to fully explain its characters. We don’t see Coriolanus’s complexity and darkness or his disdain for Sejanus. The book has him doing significant things (the handkerchief and the recording) without conscious awareness of what he is doing or why. The book’s insights into his internal struggles are crucial to understanding his transformation into President Snow, which the movie doesn’t adequately convey.

The movie could have created a believable romance with Lucy Gray to suggest that there was hope for him. However, I never believed in their romance ("Make me believe it, Miss Everdeen") and I was completely thrown by Lucy Gray's bizarre lines near the end of the film.

Conclusion

We don't see the complexity or darkness of Coriolanus's character in the movie. In the books, we are aware of Snow's developing awareness that he feels something toward Lucy Gray and we are invested in his finding her after the Games. That romance is important because it might have drawn Coryo away from his destiny of becoming President Snow. The book's insights into Coriolanus's thoughts make us wonder if he can truly love. Unfortunately, neither actor seems to put any effort into portraying a love story.

In both the book and the movie, Lucy Gray remains an enigma.

In the movie, when the two reach the lake, Lucy Gray suggests they keep traveling in the storm, so perhaps she guesses that Billy Taupe's friend hid the guns in the cabin. While Coriolanus moves the floorboards to get fishing rods, Lucy remains planted by the door rather than entering the room to start a fire or sit down. After he finds and shows her the weapon that he had used to kill Mayfair, her words become sinister and threatening– it's startling and bizarre!

In the book, Lucy Gray's and Coriolanus's last scene leaves us with the possibility that what occurred was only in Coriolanus's obsessive mind. (On reflection, we know enough about Lucy Gray to believe that she is savvy and experienced enough to put the pieces together and then run for her life.)

The book and the movie attempt to show us how young Coriolanus became villainous President Snow. The movie does not succeed because it ignores character development. The book has better character development, but was too contrived. Nonetheless, I did enjoy them both.

Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes

Wow! Fascinating history of Stalin's Great Purge and a story of a Muslim girl's arrest, transfer to Siberia, and survival in a prison camp.

The story was so good that I didn't want to put the book down, but I also didn't want it to end.

Once my neighbor finishes reading it, I will read it again!

Review - A Woman with No Name; A Journey of Survival

This is the memoir of a woman who served honorably in the U.S. Navy and, as a result of her experiences, lived with PTSD for years. Her story is filled with hope despite its horrors. It’s all true. What almost seems fictional is that she managed to rise again after everything she endured. But that, too, is true. Debra Jean is the goddess of her own life.

Her story reminds us that hope is more than reasonable. Despite the nearly unspeakable trauma she faced, she received numerous commendations and even earned a highly sought-after posting with NATO. If she can heal, perhaps each of us can, too.

You might expect a memoir about PTSD to be difficult to read. And while Debra’s descriptions of places and emotions are vivid, she never overwhelmed me with pain. I cringed often, but her tone had a clarity and objectivity that kept me from being dragged under.

Still, her writing is deeply engaging. When her plane landed in Italy and a sense of foreboding crept in, I found myself pleading silently, “No, no! Don’t get off the plane—please!”

What came next was heartbreaking. I groaned, wishing that such things didn’t happen, wishing that life didn’t have to be so cruel to make us wise. But Debra is wise. And strong.

Her spirituality is evident throughout. While describing the rituals and rhythms of her childhood religion, she writes, “Time is crucial to Catholics. The shortest mass in town equals the largest congregation. That makes more time for visiting the tavern after church.” Okay, maybe her sense of humor is even more evident. She must have inherited it from one of her grandmothers—two women I wish I had known.

After years of exemplary service and numerous commendations, Debra Jean was honorably discharged—but the document included this: “Other/Physical/Mental Condition – Personality Disorder.” She writes:

From November 1, 2001 to June 30, 2007, over 26,000 enlisted military personnel were discharged with the diagnosis of personality disorder. The Government Accountability Office studied the files. A vast majority of these service men and women were deployed overseas and/or victims of military sexual trauma. A personality disorder is considered a pre-existing condition. So how did 26,000 men and women pass their psychological tests? I believe that these men and women have PTSD. However, if they are discharged under personality disorder, the government is not responsible to pay for their disability benefits because this diagnosis is considered to be a pre-existing condition.

The courageous women and men of this country defend our freedoms, constitution, and country. Veterans should not be subjected to any unnecessary administrative battlefields in order to receive their benefits that they so rightly deserve.

Four years after her discharge, Debra began the long process of challenging the Veterans Administration, seeking recognition that her PTSD was the result of injuries sustained during her active-duty service. Many years later, she was “validated and vindicated” when the Navy amended her discharge to indicate a medical discharge.

For Debra Jean, the act of writing this memoir feels like a release. For readers, it may offer a promise—that healing is possible. Or perhaps it serves as an example of courage worth emulating. It’s certainly a lesson in compassion for those who live with PTSD, and for all of us who want to understand.

Her story begins in pain and sinks into confusion, shame, and fear. I ached for her. But her book ends with these words:

My journey continues, as I walk upon the earth’s arena carefully nurturing the new heart that beats inside this body. I will never forget the journey that carried me here. The scars on my body remind me of the thorns on a rose bush. They were meant to teach me to parent myself, to walk side by side with faith, and to never lose myself for the selfish benefit of another.
And had it not been for the grace of my Lord and Savior, I would not be here today.

Debra Jean has faced her experiences—and transcended them. I am grateful that she shared her story with me.

Every day, twenty-two U.S. veterans commit suicide.
That’s eight thousand and thirty servicemen and women each year.

What I'm Reading

Today, I started reading The Hebrew Priestess by Rabbi Jill Hammer and Rabbi Taya Shere, published by Ben Yehuda Press.

So far, it's wonderful! I loved The Jewish Book of Days and Sisters at Sinai, and I'm hoping this will be even better.

A thoughtful review would be more useful to readers, but I can't contain my excitement and wait to post! Once I finish reading the book, I'll gather my thoughts and try to write a descriptive review.

Your Face Is a Forest

Warning: Do not operate a vehicle while under the influence of this book.

Once you begin reading it, you’ll be somewhere else. Your eyes won’t focus on this world, but on another one. In your dreams, you will journey deeper into that place. It will be days before you inhabit this world again.

Get your copy here.

So definitely don’t try to drive a car. And be very careful or you might find yourself taking Rhyd’s advice to “get out of your car. Remove the roof, fill it full of soil, and plant a tree inside.”

Rhyd rarely writes directly about himself, so the autobiographical story that introduces this volume is unusual, revealing part of where he came from. It’s a coming-into-self or maybe a coming-into-life story. The other essays and poems describe his relationships with nature, celebrations, gods, places, and people. (In his blog, he also writes about capitalism and this world—but when you are reading his words, it’s this world that is other.)

Your Face is a Forest takes you on a journey. Rhyd's otherworld may not be the same one you knew as a child, but his vision is a reminder that there are other places and other powers. As a kid, I only saw the edge of “my” otherworld; Rhyd lets himself be overwhelmed by his. And he pulls you in with him.

Rhyd challenges us, not to see the world as he does, but just to see.

Shamans; Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination

Ronald Hutton is an amazing scholar. He’s also a lot of fun!

In this book, he examines the written records of Siberian shamanism. While he reviews the contradictions and omissions in scholarly studies, he also offers a tour of Siberia. And when else are we going to learn anything about that region and its people?

Everyone “knows” that the term shamanism originates in Siberia and that the phenomenon occurs in many other parts of the world. The term shamanism, which could have made sense of diverse spiritual practices, has created confusion. The term did not originate in Siberia and anthropologists disagree as to which “magical” practices in various parts of the world constitute shamanism.

The numerous tribes of people in Siberia have different languages, ethnic backgrounds, and cultures. And yet the most common term for shaman is kam; the word shaman is rare. In fact, that word may ultimately be descended from the Pali term for Buddhist monk, samana or shamana, since Buddhism did spread to parts of Siberia and affect cultures there. (Another question arises: did Buddhism bring Tibetan Bon-po practices, which have shamanic elements, to Siberia?)

Scholars have not agreed on a definition of shamanism. Hutton lists four different definitions that are currently floating around academic institutions. “A set of words and concepts which might so usefully have transcended national and disciplinary boundaries has been productive instead of so much confusion and incoherence.”

It is uncertain whether shamanism is a prehistoric practice preserved in some societies or if it spread from one region to certain others and blended with other traditions. Why are there no shamans in Africa, the birthplace of modern humans? Why is so-called shamanism more common in South America if it originated in Siberia? If it was a pre-historic practice, it should be more common in African hunting-gathering societies, than among Siberian pastoralists.

Few accounts of shamanism written prior to Russian incursions into Siberia exist. Later reports were made by Russians seeking to catalog the resources of the Russian empire. By that time, native cultures had been altered by contact with Russian imperialism.

Russians and, later, Soviets bent on subjugating and “civilizing” native peoples were fascinated by the primitive, superstitious, and magical practices of the “shamans.” Depending on the era, they felt that organized religion or rational science were superior to traditional ways.

There is no one Siberian people in that vast region which covers at least three different geographical regions. Each region once contained numerous ethnic groups. Russians lumped many of them together based on language. (Based on Russian imperialist definitions of the various groups, the Soviet Union could deny that it had exterminated six “Siberian” tribes, since speakers of those languages still existed.)

(Interestingly, shamanism was more common in societies that recognized land ownership because those societies venerated nature spirits and ancestors. Buddhism prevailed in societies that did not recognize land ownership and that had weak kinship ties.)  

There were many kinds of leaders and spiritual practitioners in each of the various Siberian tribes, but only a few of those people were labeled shamans by outside observers.

The people that scholars called shamans, were often marginal figures in the social and religious life of their tribes. Other figures lead rites, chose seasonal camping grounds, lead hunting parties, healed the sick, assisted the dying to travel to the next world, or performed sacrifices. In some groups, "shamans" were prohibited from attending major ceremonies.

Smiths, herbalists, singers, and diviners, among others, had higher prestige than those people labeled shamans by westerners. (Hutton seems to view Russians as westerners, which in this case they probably were.) Members of these societies only turned to the shaman after other “magical” specialists had failed to help them.

All the various specialists used altered states of consciousness and spiritual contacts. Shamans did not rely on just those two techniques; they also herbs, sacrifices, and prayer to help people who turned to them.

Shamans did depend on spirit guides that took animal form. Natural features such as mountains were stable and powerful; smaller spirits, controllable by the shamans, and able to travel different terrains, were needed for his or her work. (Close to half of all shamans were women, but they were less respected than male shamans.) In some cases, the shaman’s spiritual double did the work, taking animal form to seek the missing soul of a patient.

Those people labeled shamans did have one thing in common: showmanship. They were performers who engaged the participation of their audience. Both they and their audience entered altered states of consciousness.

The primary creator of western scholarly notions of shamanism was Mirce Eliade, world-renowned scholar of religions (and raving anti-Semite). Hutton concludes that Eliade ignored some facts and twisted others, selecting a few, apparently similar phenomena to support his theory that shamanism had once been a worldwide practice:

He was imposing an ideal type on a very diverse and complex set of phenomena… it was both an inversion of the modern western experience of religion and of the modern western tradition of rationalism. All these qualities gave it a considerable romantic appeal… The identification of the Siberian shaman as the archetype of the primitive worker of magic, opposed to western norms of religion, was as old as the first European contacts with shamans.

  

After many chapters of scholarly objectivity, Hutton reaches a conclusion based partly on the experiences of real people, friends and acquaintances, who have encountered spirits and rely on the guidance of those spirits to help or heal others.

Ronald Hutton

Piers Vitebsky seems to be correct, therefore, in suggesting that the traits which underpin Siberian shamanism occur naturally in individuals throughout humanity, although they are given different cultural expression at particular times and places. In Siberia, during recorded history, they were expressed in an unusually spectacular and socially esteemed manner. In early modern Europe they could be given a public role only with some difficulty and danger, and in the modern world they can hardly be expressed at all. The fact that western scholars have had to go to the far end of Eurasia to find a term for something apparently inherent in humanity may be directly related to this lack of recognition, as is the confusing breadth of phenomena to which it is now applied. At the heart of the modern scholarly fascination with what is called shamanism, and confusion over it, lies an unease caused by a willful failure of comprehension.

(Why does he say it is a willful failure?)

Some native Siberians are reviving shamanism, while others question the authenticity of the new shamanic groups. An American named Michael Harner has created a school of neo-shamanism based on what he calls Core Shamanism, practices he claims are common to many tribal societies. Although Hutton concludes that shamanistic experiences can happen to humans in any culture, he doesn’t agree with Harner’s assertion that there is a single underlying basis for all shamanic practices. The characteristics of Core Shamanism are not found in every tribal society. Some of the practices of Core Shamanism derived from Native American cultures were not exclusive to medicine men, but were experienced by most of a tribe’s young men. Core shamanism’s “self-justifying concept of shamanism as a worldwide and ancient phenomenon is very much the vision provided by Eliade.”

Hutton concludes that shamanic techniques may be of therapeutic benefit to many people, but the scholarly study of shamanism is currently imprecise, confusing, and of little academic value.

A Stanger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar

Samatar’s writing is sensual and mesmerizing. Her language evokes a believable world.

Her descriptions ground the reader in the world she has created. You can smell the spices in the market in Bain and taste the soil in Tyom. You can almost see "the clarity of light [that] can stop the heart." There are nods to other literary works, including the Hebrew Bible.

The book requires slower reading and more careful attention than I usually give to novels from the “new books” shelf at the library. I had to adjust my “listening” and be more attentive to the story, as if I were getting to know a person. Jissavet suggests, a vallon is jut--a book is a person, a soul... or at least a physical manifestation of the ephemeral soul.

Samatar’s world-building carries echoes of Ursula K. LeGuin and other authors, but her vision is uniquely her own. Her references to superstitions, books, historical events, old sayings, and even games give a sense of a complete world. With the exception of a brief mention of a few tarot images, I cannot tease out and identify the real world places and times that inspired aspects of Samatar's world.

After reading an Ursula K. LeGuin book, I usually say, “I loved it, but wonder if I really understood it.” I have to say the same thing about A Stranger in Olondria. It is clearly about language and books, but there are several other themes. One may be about how people respond to the fact of death and the gift of life. (What of the beloved survives?) Another theme may be illicit love. The story is also about clashing beliefs and world views, class and social hierarchy, and the differences between peoples with an oral tradition and those with a printed literature. It may also be about recognizing that people are more important than books or beliefs, which is an understanding that Jevick has in varying degrees throughout the novel.

The narrator, Jevick, is raised in an unsophisticated, island community. His family and the island are described in sensual, appreciative detail. After Jevick’s father, a pepper merchant, returns from cosmopolitan Olondria with a tutor, the boy is introduced into the wizardry of words and begins a love affair with books.

After Jevick's father dies, he eagerly assumes responsibility for his father’s business so he can immediately travel to Olondria. He is more interested in the life of the city and the books in its shops than in his business transactions. As I read about his explorations, the fragrances of the city of Bain rose from the page and his casual references to names, streets, books, and beliefs gave me a sense of a larger culture.

Both Jevick and the reader barely notice that there is a religious conflict in Olondria between a group that reveres people who can communicate with the dead-- whom they call angels-- and followers of the Stone who oppose "speaking with angels." After attending a festival that the followers of the Stone want to abolish, Jevick begins to be haunted by the spirit of Jissavet, a girl he met on the journey to Olondria. She had been traveling to a holy city hoping to be healed of kyitna, a terminal disease. After they parted, she died but her body was not cremated, so her spirit is trapped in the physical realm and she haunts Jevick.

The haunting is devastating and he is unable to hide what is happening to him. The followers of the Stone arrest him and try to cure him of what they consider a mental illness (which he wants to be cured of), while the followers of the goddess Avalei hope to use him as an oracle.

The followers of the Stone are unable to help him. After the priestess of Avalei promises to obtain Jissavet's body so he can cremate it and be free of the haunting, he agrees to communicate their questions to his "angel."

As the story progresses, Jevick quickly grows from a young bookworm into an adult human being with real feelings, an ability to enter into relationship, and an appreciation for life and love. His focus moves from books and art to people and relationships. I was surprised but grateful when Jevick cared more for a friend’s life than for his own desperate goal to free himself of the ghost haunting him. He learns that a book isn’t interchangeable with a person or a place. A book may be a kind of “external soul,” but people are more than the words in a book (and sadly, some people, like his brother, may be unreadable).

Jevick cared only for books and resisted a more personal interaction with the "angel." However, she demands that he write her life story. Eventually, he listens to her story and writes her anadnedet. During the many chapters detailing Jissavet's life, Jevick falls in love with her even though she was, and still is, selfish and unlovable.

Once free of the haunting, Jevick realizes the importance of people, but is distressed to learn that the followers of Avalei want to abolish books. He asserts that one should not have to choose between “cold parchment or living flesh.” He leaves Olondria and returns home.

When he returns to his friends and family on the island, "this glimpse of their new lives, so full of grace and generosity, affected me like the sight of a beautiful painting, like one of those dark and melancholy paintings of Olondria in which only a tiny corner is laden with light." He cannot fully participate in that life. He becomes a teacher of writing and storytelling, but he seeks something more than words, and his impact upon his students seems superficial.

I suspect a significant part of the book’s message lies in Jevick’s meeting with his former tutor, Lunre, near the end of the story. But what exactly does it mean? Are the letters he gives Lunre an anadnedet of Lunre's beloved? Are they embarrassed because Lunre has built a new and very different life for himself? Because Lunre never taught Jevick what was most important? Both men have lost their homes, but while Lunre has integrated into a new community, Jevick remains isolated; in fact he choses a role that is isolated from others. If you read the book, please let me know what you think of this chapter!

It’s interesting that the name of Jevick’s home, Tinimavet, contains the Hebrew word ‘mavet’ which means ‘death.’ The names of both his home and his angel contain the local word for "island." (Perhaps this is a reference to the saying, "No man is an island.")

Is this book about death or about learning to live in passionate and respectful relationship with others? Is it a metaphor for the a struggle between different world views, such as between the ba'alot ov and the Deuteronomists? What is the core message of this book? Please read it and tell me!

_________

I can't resist! Here are two quotes from the book. **Beware!** They are SPOILERS.

From page 265:
Those years, the years she lay in the doorway: every one of them hurts me, and every hour has an individual pain. Lost hours, irretrievable, hours that I would have taken up and treasured and which were scattered abroad in the mud. Hours in which she lay alone and deserted by her friends. But had I been one of her friends, had I eaten those stolen fish in the fields, had I been blessed, like them, with that inconceivable good fortune—nothing could have parted me from her. Not the kyitna, not that hair with the color of poisonous berries, which I would weave into ropes to bind me close to her side, not the hatred of all the world, not the danger of sickness, contamination, which I would have welcomed with tears of joy. Yes, I would have clasped that hair, that waist, and inhaled her frightened breath in the hope that the curse would swell to make room for me, that we might be together, safe, removed from everyone else in the honor and preference which death had shown for us. To be, like her, an aristocrat of death, who would bury us under his scarlet blossoms. To suffer, like her, from torrid fevers. To clutch her hand as I struggled for life, to hear her words of comfort gathering the transparent coolness beyond the stars.

From page 274:
Tears poured down my face. The flames were eating their way to the heart of the box. What was left there, Jissavet, my love. Your broken, delicate bones. Fragile fingers, ankles like cowrie shells. And a ball of hair, perhaps that ball of flame which burst up suddenly like a star, with a coarse, tragic, appalling odor. Other odors were there, despoiling the freshness of the day: something like resin, spices, a tainted revolting sweetness. I covered my eyes with my hands and sobbed, sitting on the ground, one hand pressed on that sad collection of volumes spotted with ink like blood. She’s going, I thought in panic. And she was. She lifted away from my heart, tearing it as she vaulted into the sky. Her foot snagged in my veins, ripping away, floating free. She was climbing that dark and trembling ladder of smoke. “Jissavet!” I cried. I snatched up the books and held them to my chest, unable to burn them now, gazing up at the sky. There, where the smoke was fading. Where the sky was the purest, most tranquil blue. Where she had gone alone, no jut to take her hand. Lighter than snow or ashes. Where she had entered at last the eternal door, leaving me inconsolable in the silence.

B is for Books - Cold Mountain

Inspired by the Pagan Blog Project.

My favorite novel is Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. People seem to either love this book or hate it. Before I finished reading the first paragraph, I knew I’d love it.

At the first gesture of morning, flies began stirring. Inman’s eyes and the long wound at his neck drew them, and the sound of their wings and the touch of their feet were soon more potent than a yardful of roosters in rousing a man to wake.

There are small spoilers ahead, but I do not give away the whole story.

The first chapter introduces Inman, a teenaged, Confederate soldier who is in the hospital, recovering from a battle wound. He recalls many of the horrors he saw in the fighting and decides to return to his home on Cold Mountain and to the young girl he loves, Ada.

Inman is supremely competent and able to deal with all the physical challenges he faces during his journey home. The twisted landscape and the corruption he encounters force Inman to look within his soul and assess his values. His real journey is within.

Each of Inman's chapters relates a different encounter. Inman meets a Reverend Dimmesdale type character in one chapter. In another, he stays in a caravan with a woman who has spent years alone in the wilderness, raising goats and sketching plants, unaware that time is passing and that she is aging.

It seems all southern novels are required to reference Greek literature, so one chapter is a reference to The Odyssey. Inman passes this test, too.

The memory of one encounter still makes me cry: Inman finds a woman who is sitting by the side of the road weeping. Her daughter had died in the night, but the ground is frozen so the woman cannot bury her. Inman follows her back to her cabin, digs a grave, buries the girl, and says an impromptu prayer. The child’s mother wraps up a considerable amount of food for him, saying she does not have the heart to cook. When he has walked some distance away from the cabin, he hears her shout. She runs to him and begs him to come back. “Some day, I won’t be able to forgive myself for not making you a meal.” Inman did not just help her bury her child; he gave her hope that there might be a future in which she could feel something besides the loss of her child.

In one long and fascinating chapter, Inman recalls his friendship with a Cherokee boy and the tribe’s redemption myth.

Redemption, and the different paths a man and a woman take to be redeemed, are the themes of the book. The love story is secondary. (Whoever wrote the screenplay never read the book.)

The other main character of Cold Mountain is Ada, a teenaged girl alone in her large home on Cold Mountain. Her father, a preacher, has died and all the men have gone to fight in the war. We meet her hiding from an angry rooster, having failed to steal an egg with which to feed herself.

A southern belle transplanted to the mountains because of her father’s health, Ada is accomplished at playing the piano, drawing, and reading Greek. However, she is completely unable to run a farm and care for herself, having always relied on other people.

Ada lives inside herself. Because she is painfully shy, she finds it very difficult to write to Inman and express her love for him. Ada’s plight is the opposite of Inman’s; she must learn to step outside herself and be competent in the world.

Once, on a walk to the post office looking for a letter from Inman, she stops at a neighbor’s farm, hoping to be invited in for a meal. The neighbor gives her a jar of jam, unaware of just how hungry Ada is. A mile or so from the woman’s home, Ada sits on the side of the hill and eats all the jam with her fingers. She falls asleep there and wakes under the stars.

Finally, someone introduces Ada to Ruby, a girl who decidedly does know how to survive. When Ruby was a toddler, her father, a drunk and a gambler who always had a new scheme, would leave her alone for days. Somehow, Ruby survived and learned all she needed to know to work a farm. The two girls reach an agreement about working Ada's farm together and Ada’s outward journey begins.

One chapter is a surprise. It focuses on an unlikely character. The message is that anyone can be redeemed and anything can be the means of that redemption.

The bond between Ada and Ruby may be more important than the relationship between Ada and Inman. Ruby helps her grow both in practical competence and in self-awareness; she is partly responsible for Ada's redemption. (When Ada lets Ruby play with one of her rings, I imagine that Ruby puts it on her ring finger, symbolically showing their bond.) I admire Charles Frazier for portraying women’s friendship so well.

**Big Spoilers Ahead**

When Inman arrives on Cold Mountain, Ada is overjoyed, but her first words to him are, “No matter what happens between us, Ada stays.”

People have different feelings about the end of the book. I think it's perfect.

I just wonder... is the loss of Ada’s little finger a message that all losses are smaller than the life that remains?

The Secrets of Dr. Taverner

Fun and engaging, Dion Fortune's short stories seem perfectly suited for adaption into a PBS television series filmed in England's misty countryside.

Dr. Rhodes narrates these tales of an unconventional doctor. He is Watson to Taverner's Holmes.

This collection of stories, published in 1936, begins shortly after World War I. Dr. Rhodes has been honorably discharged from the British Army and accepts a position as a medical superintendent in Dr. Taverner’s nursing home.

The large, old manor and its full, colorful garden are a refuge in the middle of “wild and barren country,” reminiscent of the moors near Baskerville Hall. The nursing home is a sanctuary for patients who might otherwise have been abandoned to mental institutions.

Dr. Taverner is a healer of souls who takes in patients other doctors of his era simply label insane and lock away. His method of healing is based on esoteric and magical knowledge.

You can curl up with this book on a cold night and get your fill of Halloween spookiness: the ghost of a vampire, a changeling, a spiritual con man, a mermaid, secret societies, reincarnation, mind control, and the Wild Hunt of the Faeries. Ooooh-oooooooh. I had no trouble suspending my disbelief and enjoyed every story.

Until the stories are produced for television, you can read the book online.

Just remember, there are only twelve stories, so don't read them all in one night!

When Sleep Is Elusive

You don't need to be a parent to find this funny. You can just feel the father's frustration. 

Go the F**k to Sleep by Adam Mansbach:

I remember my dad frequently coming to my doorway while I kept my eyes shut and pretended to sleep. He would yell, "Go to sleep!" I wondered how he could tell I wasn't asleep!