Platypus of Truth

With the year wrapping up, it's time to take stock again and see what's been going on here at the quiet end of "Lake Internet." Daring to peer above the surface... It looks like it was a good year for Tolkien and the Inklings: Hearing the Inklings Pilgrim's Regress Versus Firefly Seeing Beowulf Through Tolkien Tolkien's Dark Tower The Platypus and Even More Secondary Sources One of my Personal Favorites: Out in the Rain or Platypus Weather Jane Eyre Makes a Deserved Come-Back: Something, Dear Reader, Besides Shannara Thinking About An Ancient Christian Hymn and What it Tells Us About Their World-Picture: St. Patrick's Breastplate And While We're on the Topic of the Supernatural: Reviewing "The Storm and the Fury" Hellboy in Mexico and Christological Echoes Theological Localism Helps Me Understand the Golden State: California's Strange Gods The Platypus and Theological Localism The Summer of Shannara Retu...

Books on The Lord of the Rings are getting to be a dime a dozen these days, but books on J.R.R. Tolkien's first published masterpiece, The Hobbit , are still rare as, well, a hobbit.  Imagine my delight, then, when I found out that Washington College's self-styled " Tolkien Professor " was publishing an entire volume exclusively on The Hobbit .  The book is called Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit , and it very much lived up to my expectations. I was in fifth grade when I first read The Hobbit .  I had no idea what the book was about.  The only impression I had to go on was the cover, an old Balantine Books edition with an image of Bilbo in Gollum's cave, and the rather impressive sounding name of the author.  I can't admit to having been a very great reader at that point by any stretch of the imagination.  The Hobbit hooked me, and I've been reading ever since.  As I've gotten older, however, I've been a little saddened by the short sh...

Strong Son of God, Immortal Love Who we, who have not seen Thy face, By Faith, and Faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove. Alfred, Lord Tennyson Frank Pastore was a man who took issue with the divide the Enlightenment placed between Faith and Reason.  Though precipitated by personal tragedy, his conversion to Evangelical Christianity was primarily intellectual.  He set out to prove his Christian friends wrong and ended up arguing himself into the belief that Yeshua bar Yosef, the minor itinerant preacher from first century Nazareth, was in fact the Logos incarnate; the primordial Wisdom behind the kosmos become a living, breathing person.  To be less literary, he came to believe that Jesus was God and, in Evangelical-speak, accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior.  The fruit of that was an academic quest to learn all he could about the proofs for Christianity and eight years of sharing them on the air-waves of LA.  That's where I encountered...

Today I spent the morning with my students and colleges viewing the first part of Peter Jackson's film interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit .  Whatever you may think of the movie as an adaptation or as film proper, it was a lovely experience to be surrounded by an entire community enjoying themselves.  The fact that we're in the Christmas season just made it that much better, adding an extra level of gaiety to both mood and dress.  I, of course, was in the row with the Inklings club. The best part was that for the students the whole thing came as a complete surprise.  Gandalf simply showed up in the middle of their first period classes and ushered them out the door on an unexpected journey.  The look on the students' faces as what was happening slowly dawned on them was priceless. Bilbo liked surprises (so long as they were happening to other people) and he came to like adventures.  Today, we had a happy adventure.  ...and yes, it did make...

Reading about the Inklings, the informal literary circle that gathered around C.S. Lewis in the thirties and forties, gradually begins to feel like adjusting the focus on a camera lens.  You start with a single figure in hazy focus, say J.R.R. Tolkien.  Picking up Humphrey Carpenter's biography draws the professor in a few stark lines.  A person, a personality begins to emerge.  To begin to see Tolkien, however, is for others figures to become perceptible on the edges of your vision.  C.S. Lewis enters into the picture, and Charles Williams hovers, indistinct around the edges.  Seeking to know the relationship between the three men better, you may pick up Carpenter's second work, The Inklings .  Suddenly, Lewis and Williams jump sharply into view as characters and Tolkien continues to take on life and weight.  New personages flit through the frame: Hugo Dyson, Humphrey Havard, Dorothy L. Sayers, T.S. Eliot, Warnie Lewis.  Carpenter's Lewis do...

Recently, I've been re-reading one of the stranger works of C.S. Lewis, Pilgrim's Regress .  Pilgrim's Regress was Lewis' first attempt at trying to explain his new-found faith in literary form.  Following the lead of Puritan writer, John Bunyan, Lewis decided to recast his own Christian journey as a work of allegorical fiction.  Lewis and his friends promptly decided that the work was a failure, but that didn't keep him from other imaginative forays into the world of literature. Looking back on the work, Lewis decided that its major fault was two-fold: obscurity and a lack of charity.  As to a lack of charity, Lewis knew better than I do -I can't detect anything particularly spiteful.  As to obscurity, that hits nearer the mark.  However, if you are familiar with the intellectual climate of first third of the 20th century, then the book is actually quite a romp.  Even if that's not the case, there are still many elements of Lewis' spiritual journey...

My reading through the Exalted core book continued this week bringing me all the way up to "Character Creation."  Surely, I thought, the book must bog down once it gets to the rules. Now, by way of preface, the rules are always my least favorite part of an RPG.  I can never seem to master all those numbers and sequences just by looking at them in a book.  The only way I ever learned to play Exalted , D&D , Warhammer , or even Munchkin was by playing the game and having an experienced player talk me through the process.  I was surprised, then, at what a great job the writers of Exalted did in presenting the rules. The basic rules are laid out as if were following two characters through and actual scene.  As Smith and Koi encounter each new obstacle in their quest to find and translate a coded message we get to see how the various rules would be applied, what would be the result of a hypothetical role, and how player and story-teller would narrate the ev...

Well, we're now up to 200 literary meditations here at The Platypus of Truth.  It's been a much quicker trip through the second hundred than the first hundred.  I think much of that can be blamed on the last two "Summers of Shannara," but hopefully there's been an increase in more intellectual fair as well.  Whatever fair you're here for, Great Books or pulp fiction, I hope you'll be able to find plenty more of in the next 100 editions of "The Platypus Reads." Self-congratulations aside, let's move on to today's book: Exalted .  Exalted is the core rulebook for Whitewolf publishing's "Age of Sorrows" line.  I used to play this back in grad school when everything Whitewolf put out was eagerly gobbled up by those jaded with dungeon crawls and D&D.  In contrast to other systems, the Storytelling System was much more fluid and dependent on those playing the game than on the rules.  Not everyone likes that, but I loved it....

Some time ago, my friend Josh came to me with an idea for a web comic.  It never really got off the ground, but he's posting the three pages that we collaborated on over here .  Sometimes things work out, and sometimes things don't, but creating new stuff is something we humans are bound to do.  To paraphrase Tolkien: we make because we are made.

After spending a few weeks wrestling with Tolkien's interpretation of Beowulf , I found myself sitting down and reading Seamus Heaney's translation of the text during a spare moment.  I came to the place where Beowulf presents Hrothgar with the hilt of the ancient sword that slew Grendel's mother.  Hrothgar looks down at the hilt with its ancient runes and carvings depicting the war between the giants and God and meditates on the fortunes of men.  In a flash of insight, I thought: this is the whole poem! Let me explain.  Tolkien believed that the genuine contribution of the Northern peoples to European culture was the theory of courage.  The Northern heroes, at their best, were men who fought for order against chaos -a battle they knew they were doomed to lose.  If they were true heroes, their souls would join the gods and aid them in the final battle against darkness and its monsters and again go down fighting, spitting in the face of the meaninglessness...

I first encountered the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf in my senior year of high school.  Being the dutiful little Tolkien fan that I was, I promptly checked out The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays from the local library.  The Monsters and the Critics set my feet on the right path and I've loved Beowulf ever since. Flash forward.  This is the fourth year I've taught Beowulf .  Over the past summer, I was beginning to worry that my understanding of Tolkien's argument had gotten a little rusty.  I'd studied the poem as part of a larger course of study in Anglo-Saxon history during college and all sorts of things had crept in from other authors -not to mention my own meager thoughts on the poem.  With the help of the extended kinship network, I got my hands on a copy of The Monsters and the Critics , but some family friends were also able to track down Beowulf and the Critics for me. Beowulf and the Critics is a scholarly edition edited by Michael...

And so we come to the end.  It's appropriate that this final post on the first seven books of Terry Brook's Shannara series should come in October.  That's about the time I finished my first read through the The Talismans of Shannara all those years ago.  Without further comment, then, let's get down to the finale of the Heritage Series. *Spoilers and such* We last left our heroes back at chapter XXV out of a total of XXXVII.  That's a lot of ground to cover.  Coll has to be recovered and his role among the scions of Shannara made clear.  Wren has to face her betrayer and triumph.  Par must succeed in taming the Wishsong and resisting the advances of First Seeker Rimmer Dall.  Walker has broken the siege of Paranor, but his final objective still must be made clear.  Minor characters like Damson, Morgan, Padishar, and Matty Roh still have their stories to tell.  Over all this still looms the question of how the Shadowen can be defea...

There have been some interesting goings-on in the greater Houston area this past month that are worthy of note. First, the Lanier Theological Library is back in full swing with a new season of lectures.  If you can make it out to this wonderful little replica of the Duke Humphrey, it's well worth your time.  Can't get to North Houston?  The lectures are posted on the website here .  The library is also offering a Hebrew reading course with their visiting scholar, Dr. Tov. Second, Wheastone Ministries , Dr. John-Mark Reynolds of Houston Baptist University , and Providence Classical Schoo l partnered up on Friday to host an amazing event for parents who are seeking to classically educate their children. Houston is one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S., and it will be interesting to watch what happens over the next decade as more institutions and individuals from other areas are drawn there to connect and collaborate.

So, I've been working my way piecemeal through Blackwell's A Companion to Ancient Epic and noticed that Michael C. J. Putnam's take on the Aeneid seems to match fairly well with Ursula K. Le Guin's in her novel Lavinia .  Both seem to see the Aeneid as a tragic work with it's titular hero failing (perhaps inevitably) to fulfill Anchises mandate to war down the proud but pardon the defeated.  I already enjoyed Le Guin's take on the classic work, but seeing Putnam spell out the case for a more pessimistic Aeneid definitely increases my appreciation for her approach (deconstruct that as you will).  Both works are contributing to my appreciation of Virgil's masterpiece as my wife and I read through Fagles' enchanting translation this Fall (I've read Hatto and Mendlebaum prior to this).  I've never been as enthusiastic about Virgil as I have about Homer, so new insights on how to approach the man from Mantua are always welcome.  

This post will cover chapters XXIII, XXIV, and XXV of Terry Brooks' Talismans of Shannara . *Spoilers ahead* With Padishar Creel found, Morgan and Co. are now free to track down Par Ohmsford (and maybe Coll, poor fellow).  Being the odd assortment of dysfunctional adolescents that they are, this leads to lots of moody bickering.  One might expect Morgan's experiences up North to have matured him.  One might expect Matty and Damson's long history with the Freeborn to have hardened them into disciplined fighters, wise beyond their years.  No.  Instead, we watch Matty poke Morgan's ego, Morgan bluster, and both women sue the poor highlander for Radical Emotional Intimacy .  This might work if they were all in college...  The problem is they're not. This all brings up the question of audience.  Who is the intended audience for this novel?  When I was 13, this stuff worked just fine.  Being a teenager was almost as mysterious as being ...

Today's post will cover chapters XVIII through XXIII of Terry Brooks' The Talismans of Shannara , part four of the Heritage Series. *Thar be spoilerz ahead me hearties!* This section brings us further conflict between the Elves and the Federation.  We also see Walker Boh defeat the Four Horsemen at the cost of Cogline's life.  With the last of his connections to his old life stripped away, Walker's transformation into "the druid of Shannara" is complete.  The rest of these chapters is spent with the Freeborn and their quest to bust Padishar out of the clink.  This they succeed in doing with fine fighting flair leaving Damson and Morgan (and Matty) free to pursue Par Ohmsford.  The big question we're still left with is "what has become of Par and Coll?" With many of the original supporting characters killed off if the first three volumes (and now Cogline too), Brooks is obliged to bring in a cast of relative light-weights and second-stringe...

My academic background is in Greek history and literature.  Even though my duties often require me to spend time elsewhere, I make sure to devote as much time as I can each day to keeping up with my field.  That means I tend to be the go-to guy at work for questions about all things Greek (We have a couple others that fill that role as well).  When I'm reading, then, I try to keep an eye out for things that would be helpful to a beginning student of the Ancient Greeks.  Below are some books I've found helpful over the years as first steps in beginning to understand the Greeks and their literature. For a basic history of Ancient Greece, I recommend starting with Thomas R. Martin's Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times . Ancient Greece walks you through the development of Ancient Greek culture in chronological order and alerts first-time students to the major points of interest.  Martin's book should be supplemented with The Oxford Illustrated H...

Well, we have a bit of an inevitable slowdown with the commencement of the academic year but things will march on at The Platypus of Truth.  So, bobbing up to the surface again to peer about, here's what up.  My reading of The Talismans of Shannara is stopped at chapter XVIII.  That brings us almost half way through the book.  Without further ado, let's get on to the review. *Spoilers* Chapter 10 narrates Walker's decision to try and break the siege of Paranor.  Predictably, this first plan fails.  The scene is well-narrated in a way that compensates for its predictability and the assurance at the end that Walker has learned something from the episode keeps up our interest. Jumping locations, the next chapter features Morgan's plan for breaking Padishar out of the slammer (yet again).  Damson seeks to force herself into Morgan's confidence in order to speed up the rescue process and force a little emotional healing on him in time for the still ...

The Herch shares his thoughts about a possible breakdown for the Hobbit Trilogy here .

Painting miniatures has been my hobby ever since Jr. High.  One of my friends discovered the wonderful world of Games Workshop somewhere in seventh or eighth grade and I've always had an especial appreciation for the quality and imagination evinced in their Citadel line.  It was a childhood dream come true when the company acquired the rights to produce miniatures based on Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lord of the Rings .  I don't have near the time to paint that I once did, so my ability to keep in step with the doings over at GW has greatly decreased.  Still, even if I'm behind the times, I'm always excited to see what their newest creations. Citadel's Finecast range of resin miniatures has been out for several years now, but I haven't had an opportunity to sit down and work with one until last week.  A very obliging friend sent me Korhil, Captain of the White Lions for Christmas.  I can't tell you how impressed I was.  The level of detail was ...

Well folks, the end of the summer is upon us and that means it's time for the annual "Seven Heavens of Summer Reading Awards."  For those who don't know or don't remember, the SHSRA were started right here in 2008 in honor of Michael Ward's groundbreaking Planet Narnia .  In this work, Ward asserts that Lewis ordered his seven Narnia books around seven planets of Medieval cosmology.  Thus, when the end of summer draws near, I pick the top seven reads of the summer that best match with the characteristics of the seven Medieval planets.  Without further ado, then, let's get on to the awards! Moon: For the planet of madness, change and flux we have Terry Brooks' The Druid of Shannara .  This meditation on mutability has a city turned to stone along with its godlike keeper, a woman changed into the earth, an elemental changed into a monster, a wandering minstrel into king, and finally a reluctant recluse into the first of a new order of Druids. Mercur...

Reading The Talismans of Shannara , encountering its particular tone again after so many years, brings with it a constant succession of images.  For some reason, Tyrsis and Varfleet are linked in my mind with the wintry world of Narshe in Final Fantasy III/VI (the book predates the game by two years).  I suppose there's also a Resistance in the game and several attempts to enter and escape an occupied city.  Still, I'm not quite sure how these things became connected in my mind.  Other disjointed memories come floating in: eating bread and cheese in the basement before going out to shoot with the bow and practice knife throwing, listening to the BBC's production of The Hobbit , playing a Tolkien ccg in the vaulted family room during a thunder storm.  Was I reading the book when these things happened?  Why these images and not others?  I don't know. One thing I do know: we did because we read.  Our world was interesting because it was wrapped in ...

In my end is my beginning -T.S. Eliot So, dear reader, I end where I began.  The first Shannara book I read was The Talismans of Shannara .  I don't quite remember how I came to pick up the last book of the Heritage Series first.  Somewhere along the line I suppose I got the impression that they were serial novels.  Anyhow, I was experiencing severe withdrawal after having come to end of all the Tolkien I could get my hands on.  Back then, when a young teenage boy asked what he could read next, the Shannara books were where everyone sent him.  So, just an author's name in hand, I shuttled off in my mom's Taurus wagon to the library (a wonderful, old Victorian edifice).  There among the stacks I grabbed the first volume by Terry Brooks (who I assumed at the time must be a woman since I didn't know any Terrences) that came to hand.  I remember sitting at the table in the breakfast nook and looking out the window at the forest where the trees made...

I've been on a trip and that's kept me away from the keyboard for the past week.  It hasn't kept me away from the books, however, and I ended up finishing The Elf Queen of Shannara .  Rather than try to break that huge chunk of pages down into several posts, I'm going to attempt to summarize here my thoughts on the work as a whole with a brief summary of the events since chapter 18 to help jog any faulty memories. *Spoiler Alert* When we last left our heroes, Wren had taken up her role as Queen of the elves.  Now, we have remaining in the company of the Loden only Wren+animal friends, Garth, Eowen, Gavilan, Triss, and Dal.  With Ellenroh's death, Eowen decides to tell Wren the secret behind the demons and the renewal of elven magic.  Quite simply, the elves are both the demons and the Shadowen, or least some of them are.  The elves delved too deep and too greedily and awakened that from which they fled...  Oops, wrong book.  This revealed, E...

This morning's post will take us all the way up to the beginning of chapter 18.  We're more than half-way there folks. *Spoiler Stuffs* The minute the company leaves Arborlon the body count begins to rise.  Tolkien hated character killing, but Brooks has always been willing to spill blood.  Early on, he did this with armies of red-shirted-ensigns.  With The Elf Queen of Shannara even the ensemble are no longer safe.  In a matter of a few chapters we lose both the Owl and the Queen.  From a plot standpoint, this is necessary to allow Wren to assume leadership of the company and thus become "the Elf Queen of Shannara."  Killing them off also raises the stakes forcing the reader to acknowledge that no one in this book is safe as well as investing the audience more deeply in the work via the pathos created by the death of a beloved character. Brooks' writing, from a plot standpoint, is at its best in this portion of the work.  Everything that ...

Tom Shippey points out in his Road to Middle Earth that the germ of Barad Dur, Sauron's Stronghold, comes from a scrap of Chaucer where the poet makes an offhand reference to a knight and his approach to "the dark tower."  Chaucer expected that everyone knew that story, but somehow in the intervening centuries it has become lost.  Using his imagination, Tolkien tried to delve back into the mine of story and imagine what this Dark Tower might have been.  We see several tries at this image, or several "accounts" in Tolkien's corpus.  The first is Thangorodrim, Morgoth's "dark tower," where he sits "on hate enthroned."  The second, and like unto it, is Sauron's original keep at Tol Sirion.  This is the dark tower before which Luthien, in all her frailty, stands and lays the deepest pits bare with her song (an image oddly reminiscent of protestant poets like Spenser, Bunyan, and Wesley).  Building on these two images, Tolkien constru...

So I've been doing a lot of gabbing here about the Shannara books and their relative merits as light adventure fiction.  Thus far, there's been plenty of analysis, but very little geek out of pausing to simply enjoy the books as fun stories.  In that spirit, then, I'm going to take a shot at naming my favorite characters from the first seven books and invite you to do the same.  Who are your favorite Shannara characters?  Here are mine (in chronological order?): 1. Allanon:   Tall, bearded, dresses in black, learned, mysterious past, and packing more firepower than half the star fleet.  For me, at least, he is the most interesting character in the first three books.  The little glimpses we get into his thought, history, and struggles blow everyone else away.  I also enjoy watching him age and change from the angry-young-Gandalf of The Sword of Shannara , to the more grandfatherly and sad figure in The Wishsong of Shannara .  We really get t...

This morning's post will cover up to the beginning of chapter 14. *Begin Spoilers* After viewing the city and learning a little more about the history of the elves on Morrowindl, Wren is summoned to the council hall.  Here, we have Brooks try his hand at political writing as he imagines the elven high council arguing with the Queen over the fate of the island.  Ellenroh pushes for them to use the Loden, an elfstone set in the Rukh staff that the queen carries, to magically enfold the city so that it can be transported back to the Four Lands.  After initial objections the council, of course, agrees, and plans are made to begin the journey back to the beach the following day.  We then get a magnificent description of the invocation of the Loden's magic and the drawing up of the city into the Loden.  Just as things are getting interesting, however, Brooks cuts back to Walker Boh and Cogline at Paranor. Thoughts: 1. I appreciate Brooks' attempt at political...

A quick post today just to finish off chapter 11. *Begin stuff-that-you-might-not-want-to-read-if-you-haven't-read-the-book* Chapter 11 really is the most interesting chapter (for me) in the book thus far.  Brooks keeps the pacing fast even though most of the chapter is taken up with conversation.  All the character's uneasiness and Brooks' stinginess in handing out information keeps up a good sense of tension that rolls right on to the next chapter.  Even though the space is brief, Brooks' is able to give us strong and swift portraits of the key players: Ellenroh, the Owl, Gavilan, Phaeton, and Eowen (shame on you Mr. Brooks!).  The frantic battle scene that ends the chapter with its display of the raw power the elves have rediscovered is quintessential Shannara.  These last two points, strong, swift character portraits and lavishly drawn battle scenes, are the hallmarks of the Shannara series; sometimes the only thing they have going for them.  With t...

Today's post will take us up to the middle of Chapter 11, or roughly half way through the book. *Spoiler Material* Wren, Garth, and the happy forest friends arrive a a besieged Arborlon after being chased around the island by various nondescript "demons."  Wondering what in the world they're going to do now, they run into Link the Owl who offers to escort them into the fortified city.  More nondescript monsters attack and Wren is "forced" to use the elfstones again to annihilate a city block's worth of baddies. That's about what it felt like to read things up to that point.  I wasn't able to really engage with the story and it all fell a little flat.  Even the monsters, which are usually Brook's favorite part, seemed pasteboard.  Upon entering Arborlon, however, the story finally begin to pick up some steam. Now we find out that the Rover girl is really the long lost elven princess.  Her return has been prophesied for years and she ...

My wife and I noticed while watching a BBC production of Jane Eyre from the 1970s that Rochester consistantly calls Miss Ingram "Dona Biancha."  Now, this makes sense since her name is Blanche and the French "blanche" in English is "white."  So transposed into Italian we get "Dona Biancha" or "Lady White."  However, in English folklore a "white lady:" is a common ghost in old castles or mansions.  Thornfield does in fact boast a "white lady," though Mrs. Fairfax tells Jane that she's never heard of the house being haunted.  That "white lady" is the very tangible Bertha Mason.  This point highlights a close resemblance between Blanche and Bertha.  Both are haughty, imperious, locally renowned for their beauty, olive-skinned, and drawn to Rochester.  We might say that in choosing Blanche to make Jane jealous, Rochester is also acting out for her a rejection of his first wife as she was in her prime.  It ...

Poor Quintus of Smyrna Is a scripta minora Because all he wrote Is only a footnote (To Homer)  After finishing The Iliad , my wife and I weren't quite ready to quite the plains of windswept Troy.  The problem, of course, is that Homer is only interested in narrating a small section of the ten-year conflict.  Granted, much that came before and much that comes after the few days he narrates is included in the poem, but there is a still greater amount of material that Homer either excludes as not pertinent to his story or simply assumes that the audience knows and so only alludes to in the text.  Enter Quintus of Smyrna and his Posthomerica . The Posthomerica is a late and minor work that attempts to arrange in narrative form material covering the resumption of the conflict after Hector's burial to the homecomings (nostoi) of which The Odyssey is the most memorable.  As I said, it is a minor work of considerably less skill and power than The Iliad . ...

This post will cover chapters 6 and 7 of The Elf Queen of Shannara by Terry Brooks. *Begin Spoilers* Our adventure continues with our intrepid heroes slashing their way into the heart of the mysterious jungle of Morrowindl.  Beset on all sides by strange beasts, fever-ridden swamps, and pursued by the horrific Wistron, Wren struggles to unlock the terrifying mystery of the elven island in secret hope that it will also unravel the enigma of her own origins.  However, such an undertaking seems beyond even the prodigious skills of Wren and her faithful retainer Garth, Rovers though they be.  Surely, they would have succumb to the danger of the In Ju swamp had not a fortuitous meeting with a splinterscat named Stressa given them a much needed guide.  This prickly product of magical mayhem offers to guide them through to the elven castle on the condition that our heroes return with the mysterious creature to the Four Lands. And that's about the shape of it. ...

Today's post will cover chapters 4 and 5 of Terry Brooks' The Elf Queen of Shannara . *Spoiler Stuff* Five chapters in, and I think I know what genre Brooks is channeling this time.  From the odd blend of High Fantasy and Science Fiction that is The Druid of Shannara , we've now landed in the world of Turn-of-the-Century Pulp.  Wren is the dazzling young heiress with her mysterious legacy, Garth her taciturn and faithful retainer, and Tyger Ty (I do have to confess that the name makes me wince whenever I read it) the gruff old flying ace who gets them there.  I'm seeing shades of H.R. Haggard all over this stuff.  We've even got the mysterious jungle island where prior adventurers have disappeared.  Now that I've got a better feel for what Brooks is doing, I hope I can get more into sympathy with the work.  We've also made it to the beach of Morrowindl now, so the main plot ought to start picking up.  Maybe the next fifty pages will be a bit more...

Last night, my wife and I were able to sit down and watch Studio Ghibli's The Secret World of Arrietty , a film based on the Borrowers series by English writer Mary Norton.  I've never read the books (miseducated, I know), so I can't say how faithful an adaptation it is, but the film more than stands on its own merits.  Like all Studio Ghibli films, The Secret World of Arrietty combines strong, simple storytelling with incredibly lush and imaginative animation (there are moments when the color and detail in the film are almost painful).  The animation is worth the price of a rental (or a netflix slot) alone, but the story also is well worth the time being enchanting, heart-felt, and delightfully free of the irony and self-consciousness that permeates American film.  Speaking of culture, The Secret World of Arrietty does a wonderful job of synthesizing the British world of the book with the Japanese world of Studio Ghibli.  The story, the visuals, and the sou...