Skip to main content

Seven Heavens of Summer Reading 2017: The Platypus Reads Part CCCXIV

Another Labor Day Weekend is upon us and that means that another Summer Vacation has come to a close upon this middle earth. With that, it's time for 2017's annual Seven Heavens of Summer Reading Awards. As in summers past, I award the the most interesting books of the year's summer reading to the various medieval planets that most correspond to their virtues.

Sun: The Sun is the heaven of scholars. A hundred years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien was penning the first words of what would become Middle Earth. It has taken two lifetimes to bring out all that was in that tweedy little don's head. Christopher Tolkien, at 93, has brought out what he considers the capstone of his father's work Beren and Luthien. Though there is no new material here, the arrangement allows the reader to see how the central tale of Tolkien's mythology evolved over the course of its creator's long life. The Solaric Award, then, goes to both Tolkiens for two life's-works well done.

Mercury: Words are tricky things, not the least because they often say more than we mean them to. For looking behind the words we use to deal with race to the power-dynamics behind them, the Mercurial Award goes to Shelby Steele for his ever-challenging The Content of Our Character.

Venus: Venus is the planet of creativity and its award goes to a work that has challenged me to think harder about the creative aspect of the cinematic enterprise: Save the Cat by Blake Snyder.

Moon: I've enjoyed diving into Valiant Comics' considerable oeuvre this year. Though the school year was taken up with Rai, I turned this summer to look at something a little more niche. The award for the planet of madness and changes goes to Valiant Comics' Britannia: We Who Are About to Die, and its singular centurion, occult detective Antonius Axia.

Mars: The planet of warriors goes to another Valiant comic series for bringing us into a world of Jon Carter of Mars type fun XO Man-o-War Soldier and General. This soaring space opera featuring a time-traveling 5th century Goth and his sentient suit of space armor is ongoing!

Jupiter: The planet of kings goes to the story of a man who thought our highest duty was to rule ourselves: The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. This is American theater at its finest -right up their with Death of a Salesman- and I can't believe that I missed out on it for years. Thanks to the nice drama teacher at Half-Priced Books who tipped me off while I was helping her look for stuff on the Salem Witch Trials.

Saturn: How do you make an end? Agatha Christie spent decades creating an intricate alternate universe peopled with some of the world's most memorable super-sleuths. She also had the courage to follow her creations into their twilight years, and even killed off her great creation, Hercule Poirot. By The Pricking of My Thumbs, a Tommy and Tuppence mystery, isn't one of Christie's greatest works, but it does put on display the unique courage she had in allowing her characters to age and falter.

So there you have it folks! Another successful year of celebrating the oddly mundane here at Platypus of Truth.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...

California's Gods: Strange Platypus(es)

We've noticed lately a strange Californian dialectical twist: there, freeways take the definite article.  In other parts of the country one speaks of I 91 or 45 North.  In California, there's The 5, The 405, The 10.  Each of these freeways has its own quirks, a personality of sorts.  They aren't just stretches of pavement but presences, creatures that necessitate the definite article by their very individuality and uniqueness.  They are the angry gods to be worked, placated, feared, for without them life in California as we know it would cease.  Perhaps that's fitting for a land whose cities are named for saints and angels.  Mary may preside over the new pueblo of our lady of the angels, but the freeways slither like gigantic serpents through the waste places, malevolent spirits not yet trampled under foot.

Seeing Beowulf Through Tolkien: The Platypus Reads Part CXCIX

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...