The Cruelty of School-tees: The Worst Witch and the Hogwarts Problem
Like many readers who have a modicum of Internet awareness, I’ve spent a fair bit of time trying to find a thing to replace Harry Potter as my go-to “wizard school” series. There are, of course, many to choose from. Ursula Le Guin infamously said of Harry Potter that the work is, to paraphrase, derivative of a genre of boarding school tales, some of them featuring magic and some of them not. Indeed, one doesn’t have to go far to find obvious influences on the HP series, some of them so blatant that they border on plagiarism (or, in the case of the author claiming they were unaware, incredulity). The Worst Witch (1974) by Jill Murphy preceded the first HP novel by 23 years and is perhaps the most obvious of more popular novel’s influences. It is also an example, if you’ll forgive me saying it, of a book whose story and tropes were better presented when pilfered by successor novels in the same genre. The first novel in the series follows Mildred Hubble, a first-year at Cackle’s Academy, a boarding school for young witches. The main plot centers on Mildred attempting to teach her new familiar (a cat she names Tabby and which is the only cat that isn’t black) while avoiding the ire of rival student Ethel and potions master Miss Hardbroom and making a fool of the school. Naturally, she mostly fails at all of these things and only avoids an uncomfortable “interview” with headmistress Cackle by uncovering a convenient plot by Cackle’s sister to take over the school. The cat may or may not learn to balance on a broom by the final page…
Holiday Miracles (or, How I Tried Something New and Learned to Enjoy Christmas Novels)
I’ve never read a Christmas novel for adults before. In fact, I never considered reading one until I got bored in my local Target and decided to give one a try for the hell of it. And then I spent about a week reading and livetweeting the experience. If you were to ask me why it has taken this long to actually read a book like Jenny Colgan’s Christmas at the Island Hotel, I might have given you the “it’s not my thing” excuse. In many ways, that’s technically true, but given my love of certain types of Christmas movies, it would be technically wrong, too. So the question remains: What did I think of Christmas at the Island Hotel, and did it change my mind about Christmas novels?
How to Be a Conservative Rabbit Tale: On Polly Horvath’s Mr. and Mrs. Bunny–Detectives Extraordinaire
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I requested a review copy of Polly Horvath’s then-new children’s novel, Mr and Mrs. Bunny–Detectives Extraordinaire (2012). The quirky premise — a pair of rabbits taking on the role of detectives (duh) — gave me some strong The Rescuers vibes, and being a bit of a closet animal fantasy nerd, I figured it was up my alley. And then I promptly forgot about it until now. You’re free to call me a monster. The story splits its time between Madeline, Mr. and Mrs. Bunny, and the Grand Poobah, who is mostly there to be the menacing villain. For Madeline, island life with her extreme hippy parents, Mildred and Flo, is no picnic, especially when it comes to her education and desire to fit in with “normal society.” But when her parents are kidnapped by what appears to be a car full of foxes and she discovers a note demanding to know the whereabouts of her code-breaking uncle, she must set out to save them. Enter Mr. and Mrs. Bunny, a couple of country bunnies who move to a more bustling bunny valley and decide to try their hand at being detectives, which they do by simply wearing fedoras. When they stumble upon Madeline, who can curiously understand them, they set out in their clunky way to help her find her parents and put an end to whatever the foxes are really planning. And meanwhile still, the Grand Poobah, the leader of the foxes, just wants someone to decode a set of coded recipe cards so he can make bank in his rabbit and rabbit by-products facctory. Hi-jinks ensue.
Book Review: The Witches by Roald Dahl
If Dahl were alive today, he might be particularly bothered by the fact that the 1990 adaptation of his 1983 novel, The Witches, has had the same (or, more probably, slightly more) cultural staying power than the novel it loosely adapts. Indeed, Dahl is on record as having called the adaptation “utterly appalling,” yet for a disturbing interpretation to his work, the film remains a cultural touchstone. Until now, my only knowledge of The Witches was my early experiences with the film, a product more deeply terrifying than its quirky and twisted literary predecessor. And, so, like many readers of Dahl’s works, I have a different experience of this particular work, moving backwards from adaptation to the original with a clear sense of bias towards the former. The Witches is a curious work, both quirky and a tad twisted. The novel follows an unnamed English boy who falls under the care of his Norwegian grandmother after the untimely death of his parents. The grandmother regales her newfound charge with all sorts of tales, the favorite of which are her stories about being a retired witch hunter. When his grandmother falls ill, they vacation in a fancy hotel in Southern England to promote her recovery, which turns out to be the location for the annual meeting of witches. The boy, naturally, stumbles upon the witches, discovers their dastardly plot to rid England of all the pesky children, and suffers a tragic fate that drags his grandmother out of retirement. It’s a story of evil witches and myth, children turned into mice, and the unwavering stupidity of English high society.
A Not Quite History: The Great Courses’ “The History of Ancient Egypt”
For the past week, I’ve been listening to a series of lectures from The Great Courses on the history of ancient Egypt, which I must have grabbed on an Audible sale many moons ago. The series is presented by Dr. Bob Brier, a notable Egyptologist and mummy expert. I say notable because much of his popularity stems from his extensive popular work with mummies, including reconstructing tombs for museum exhibits, reproducing the Egyptian mummification process, and other mummy-friendly things; he also has some 30 years of experience “in the field.” Given that the presenter of these lectures is most notable for his popular work, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the lectures themselves are packaged accordingly. Yet, in listening to these lectures, I found myself wondering about those credentials. An ardent fan of ancient Egypt and apparent mummy expert Brier certainly is, but do these lectures represent someone who could be called an expert of ancient Egypt’s history? The answer is “not really,” and I don’t know if that’s due to The Great Courses’ educational philosophy (this is my first TGC experience) or Brier’s insistence on a casual, heavily anecdotal, and meandering series of lectures. Whatever the reason behind it, I have to say that I have been greatly disappointed in this series. I assumed going in that I would get a comprehensive history of ancient Egypt with at least a degree of scholarly depth, but overall, the lectures are devoid of what I’d call “useful material.” Indeed, I don’t know that I’ve learned anything I couldn’t have easily picked up by reading the wiki page (Brier’s personal anecdotes aside), which to me seems to decrease the value of these lectures as a “history of Ancient Egypt.” Mind you, Brier is noticeably enthusiastic about his subject; indeed, it’s clear from his voice and anecdotes that he absolutely loves ancient Egypt. Yet, that enthusiasm, for me, doesn’t translate to a history of an entire culture.
Shaun’s Rambles 003: On Negative Reviews and Their Value
…in which I talk about things some people don’t want to write. In this edition: http://media.blubrry.com/shaunsrambles/ia801504.us.archive.org/10/items/ShaunsRambles003OnNegativeReviewsAndTheirValue/ShaunsRambles003–OnNegativeReviewsAndTheirValue.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS