Contest winner and commentary, and children's books endings (contest again!)

[alanajoli]

According to Random.org, last week's winner (with a twitter feed from HeldenSiegfried) is holmes_iv. Congratulations! Let me know the best way to get you the book. :)

I have to say, I really enjoyed the Trickster love that showed up -- from Coyote to Anansi to Sun Wukong (lyster, is he the Monkey King?). I also liked the idea of Q, who is arguably a Trickster figure (and certainly as verbose as kattw suggests). There really is just something about Tricksters, whether they're gods or culture heroes or just the lovable rogue archetype (aka Han Solo) that makes life fun.

And sometimes also terrifying. But that's their job.

--

In other news, I met what I think was my one major resolution this year: I finished "The Dark Is Rising" sequence by Susan Cooper. The last two books were read-aloud family books, so that Bug could be included in them, and we wrapped up Silver on the Tree today. I have to say, the last chapter is hard for me to swallow, as it contains something of a bitter pill for several of the characters. (I'm trying not to spoil the ending here, since if I'd gone this long without reading them, someone else may have, too.) Mind you, it's not the same kind of trouble I had with Philip Pullman's very well-written but ultimately not-my-thing The Golden Compass and sequels, where I realized two-thirds of the way through the last book that he was telling an entirely different story than I'd thought he was, which ruined the books for me. Cooper's story is fantastic, and the ending has some qualities reminiscent of both Tolkien and Lewis. But one of the final consequences is not sitting well with me (much like Susan's fate in the Narnia books made me angry as a child), and I wonder how I would have reacted to the ending had I read them when I was the same age as the characters. I suspect that, like Narnia, I would have rewritten the fate I didn't like in my head, and believed the story ended a different way, at least, in my telling of it. Now I'm too caught up in the authorial decision -- why was a certain fate chosen for the characters? what does that imply about the rest of the story? -- and can't just imagine my own way out of it because I'm stuck in the analysis.

Which is to say, I highly recommend the series. I hope Bug loves them when she's growing up. But I'd love to hear (in a spoiler-filled way) from others who have read the books about the consequence I'm discussing, and their interpretations. So, gang, comments to this post are not spoiler free. Please, please, have at, and I'll respond.

But on to the contest. Tell me about a children's book that you either a) read as an adult and thought you'd have experienced it differently as a child, or b) rewrote the ending in your head. This week's prize is a double whammy: two "Death Gate" novels by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Fire Sea and Into the Labyrinth. Good luck!

Comments

[breathingbooks.livejournal.com]

The ending of that book still upsets me when I think about it. It has power, yes, and it's not totally out of character for the bittersweet feel of the books, but wiping people's memories always feels like such a horrible cheating trick. And then Will gets to have and eat his cake but poor Bran can't? (I am remembering that bit very fuzzily, but I seem to recall that Bran is now the once and future human and Will is not.)

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you. I'm glad it's not just me. I can't figure out quite why Cooper thought it necessary, but I'm hoping someone has a good answer. It does work as bittersweet... but it seems to me to undermine the validity of the choices made by plain, everyday humans -- and those choices seemed to be at the core of the story -- to have them forget the consequences of their actions, good and bad.

That said, I've started the "rewrite" in my head -- an after-the-fact story that takes place when the children are all adults, and Jane confronts Will about the dreams she's been having that she thinks are real. I don't know that I'll ever actually write it, but I think I will go on believing that Jane, at least, eventually figures out a way to remember.

[breathingbooks.livejournal.com]

It definitely makes the humans out as weaklings too, who can get mind-wiped at will and then be kindly left to be friends with the guy who gets to keep his memories because he is special, a friend who is also hurt because he's never going to have a fully real friendship with them ever again.

It's a powerful ending, but plenty of evil people are powerful, so I've never bought the idea that "Rocks Fall, Stuff Sucks" is better than one that makes you shake your first in triumph. I mean, yes, sacrifices must often be paid, but (A) children's series and (B) most people know that or figure it out in their own life.

[kattw.livejournal.com]

Well, Q DID write his own book (which you should read if you haven't, even if you don't like Trek books, since it's one of the 2 or 3 totally worth reading regardless).

Speaking of. I honestly never read 'kids books' (with the exception of a bit by Del Rey). Frankly, for a long while, I was running behind in reading level. Then I discovered the sci-fi section in the library, and went from a 1st grade to, like, 10th grade reading level overnight (or over a week or so, anyways). Which just goes to show: making kids read books they don't like doesn't do much. Finding something that interests them will make learning better. And when it comes down to it, what does Shakespeare have that Tolkien, or Grisham, or Abbott, don't have, other than Cliff's Notes?

But in the spirit of the question asked, and Q, I HAVE reimagined the ending to Star Trek several times. I always thought that, at the end of the final series (Voyager I think, since Enterprise takes place earlier), rather than whatever ACTUALLY happens, it really should have just been a monster of the week episode like the rest, and then in the last 5 minutes had Q show up, claim to be bored, snap his fingers, and the next scene would have been the big bang.

Semi-related. Have you ever read Clemens' Wit'ch saga? It has a rather unexpected (to me, but I'm gullible) ending, but an even weirder beginning. Or first page, specifically. Each book starts with a university release, and occasional note from instructors. I really enjoyed the series, and it's a good read should you get bored. But it takes a while to figure out what those releases are about.

[orryn-emrys.livejournal.com]

You know, I read these books when I was young and I remember really loving them, but I couldn't have told you how they ended... and now I remember why. For some reason, nothing disturbs me more in the culmination of a story than the idea that the experiences the characters went through are slipping away from them. For good or ill, the adventure we shared together had some profound quality that sucked me into the story... but memories are the immortality that gives a story meaning. And for characters that don't remember, it might never have happened.

I have always had this issue. Even in a novel like Stephen King's IT, the idea that the characters were losing their memories of the events that brought them together and forged them into the people they were was profoundly unsatisfying, despite the psychological horrors that likely would have plagued them throughout their lives.

And yes, Susan's fate really did bother me...

[holmes-iv.livejournal.com]

Woohoo! I win! Presumably because I had some number between 2 and 8, which is all that random-number generation seems able to do for me lately. ;-) Talking of which, I suspect the best way to get it to me is to hand it to me, Sunday after next—unless you're coming to Brooklyn next week for J's shindig?

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... J's having a shindig? I wonder if she mentioned that and it went into Mommy-brain-limbo...

Vikings is actually meeting on the 24th, not the 17th, as I won't be home from Boston in time to run anything on the 17th. I should possibly send out an e-mail about this.