My Ink on ‘The Half Blood Prince’ (Warning: Major Spoilers)

I don’t feel bad about writing this piece because we are such late comers to the series, and what are total bombs for us are mere afterthoughts for the real H.P. fans. Unfortunately, before I read ‘Half Blood Prince’, I was reading an article on Rowling in the past—something to do with Dumbledore being gay, and when I read the article months ago, it politely told me that Dumbledore had died.

So, in some way I was expecting it, but I didn’t think it would go down like this.

In this book, the game has completely changed, the lines have been drawn in the sand, good people die, and it sets us up for the final installment which my wife and I will begin reading soon.

The overall tone of the book seemed subdued to me, and perhaps that’s because we had just finished Order of the Phoenix, and that book is so action oriented, with the hiding, the order, the preparation for battle, and it made Half Blood Prince seem somewhat slower. But I mark that up to Rowling realizing that she needed to establish the relationship between Potter and Dumbledore more, as most of this book is dedicated to that--what happens between them during the last year of Dumbledore’s life.

This book also delves into the hilarity of teen-age love, loss, and jealousy, and does it in a way only Rowling can do with the characters we have grown to love.

Now about the death of Dumbledore--it wasn’t an honorable death, in the physical sense, but the scene was set up to show the substance, the goodness of Dumbledore. One can’t help but see the religious overtones when Snape pulls his wand, and Dumbledore, who has always protected Snape and never let anyone talk poorly about him, is killed by being violently tossed into the air. Dumbledore was already weak and dying, and Snape attacks him unarmed.

I asked my wife if she thought that somehow this was planned out by Dumbledore and Snape; if Dumbledore’s mercy will later come to fruition when Snape turns on Voldemort at the last second, and she had the same thoughts on it as I did. The only reason I don’t think this happens, is the way Dumbledore begged Snape not to kill him, not because Dumbledore was afraid to die, but because he was afraid of Snape turning to the dark side.

It was great stuff.

Even this morning, my wife was getting dressed and she stopped and looked at me, saying, “Dumbledore is dead.” Yes he is, I told her, and I can’t wait to see how his death is avenged.

As I’ve said before in previous Harry Potter posts, I realize how lucky we are to be reading these after each book has already been pulped. I couldn’t imagine having to wait the year plus between each installment.

Till next read—

JT.

My ink on the classic: All The King's Men

Accidentally picking this up at the library in their audio book section, I gave the first CD a listen and was hooked throughout all 18 CD's in this large, vast and powerful read.

All The King's Men was originally pulped in 1946 by Robert Penn Warren, and it is a tale about the corruption of a powerful man. I have to get really geeky here and talk about some pop TV for a second. The character Benjamin Linus on ABC's Lost is played by Michael Emerson is one of my favorite TV characters of all time.

I was pleased to find out that All The King's Men, the audio book version is read by none other than the Michael Emerson. And since the story is told in first person, Emerson becomes the central charaacter of the story, Jack Burden. There was a movie made recently based on this book, and Burden was played by Jude Law, I believe, and the movie tanked.

I'll tell you why it tanked, because Emerson didn't play Jack Burden. His voice and inflection are perfect and it would be hard to imagine no other as the character because Emerson embodies Burden so well, simply by audio. Imagine what he could do on the big screen.

That being said, let me tell you how awesome this book was. Coming at it from a point where I knew nothing of the story, it was a great trip into mind of Burden. Burden is a news reporter who, as a young man, gets hooked up with Willie Stark, a politician on the rise who begins his career as a straight shooter, someone even Lincoln would be proud of. But as the story goes on, flashing back and forth from the past to the present, making the book feel timeless and move quickly despite its length, we find Stark turning into the thing we feared he would become most, a politician. Stark's rise and downfall is chronicled by Burden, who tells how his past and present life mix in and blend together with Starks, touching at all points.

Burden's thoughts and comments about life and the goings on in the story of often pessimistic and hopeless, and that's perhaps what this book does so well, in that eventually it saves Jack Burden, and not a page too late.

Warren can write southern dialect with the best of them: McCarthy, Faulkner, and the conversations in the book feel real and genuine. Nothing reads so good as some southern fried dialog.

This book is deep and touches on many aspects of life: parenthood, death, pride, love, loss of love, philosophy, history, and politics. The characters are singular, and I don't think we'll see another Jack Burden in literature for a long time--someone so callused on the outside but vulnerable as well, with quick wit, a lack of regard for any authority, and one who eventually admits he was wrong about everything.

I loved this book, and will read it again in the future. If you are a fan of audio books, you must hear this one in your ears. I never experienced a better experience with a narrator than I did with Emerson's Burden. Pick it up, and enjoy.

Until next read--

JT.

Geeked About Tale of Two Cities

Before I get too deep on this classic novel, I wanted to say that it is obvious I have no education in Literature, no experience in the field and no qualifiers to allow me to talk about this on any professional level. I write about these books because I love a good story.

A Tale of Two Cities is exactly that, a dang good story. Like I mentioned before, I am not going to add anything to the critical canon about this book, but I can add my flavor to it, and what it meant to me.

As an American student, I did not get more than a page on the French revolution, and seeing it in novel form, and a story that intertwines with historical events and matches the mood and culture of the characters was a blast. I enjoyed getting some perspective on one of the bloodiest times in France’s history. The guillotine becomes a living, breathing thing in this novel, and I never fully appreciated the weight of the method of execution till I read through this book.

Is this an easy read? I don’t think so. I was constantly referencing my notes in the back of my Barnes and Noble edition, trying to get some background on the historical references (which are plenty) and the sayings used back then which have zero meaning today.

Sydney Carlton is the anti-hero mold of all time. The loser who gives all to save those he loves, especially our dear heroine, Lucie.

In fact, I have heard that the character (Carlton) is loved so much, that a modern writer had put his story on page, as there is a huge chunk of book not devoted to him, however he is the central focus, the hero, the proverbial gunslinger, the knight in shining armor, although strangely enough, he does no fighting. Dickens leaves that up to one of his more humorous characters in the story, Miss Pross.

And that brings me to one of the best bad guys I have read about in a while, Madame Defarge. I don’t want to go into any further detail, but know this: you do not want her to sew anything for you.

And this story has such subtle and over the top humor that somehow this combines and works so well. I laughed out loud while reading it at times, and I came through on the other side seeing Dickens as a man who was not criticizing one historical group or the other, but trying to show the humanity on both sides, rich and poor, vengeful and hopeful, the revolutionists and the leaders of the status quo—each side is represented in a human distinction, with the victims being shown for what they were, not some type of political ploy, but humans who have suffered much.

I am looking forward to getting some more Dickens under my belt, and I recommend this read, especially if you don’t mind trudging through the older English language.

The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town.

The Innocent Man, A Book Review (No Spoilers).

John Grisham is one of the most successful authors of all time. He is a machine, constantly grinding out new dramatic fiction pieces like clockwork, and he has established a fan base that will never leave him, no matter what he writes.

Grisham is an author you can trust, and when I say that I don’t meant that he is someone who puts out easy work, but I mean that the majority of his stories are going to be a guaranteed compelling read.

The Innocent Man is Grisham’s non-fiction work originally pulped in 2006. Grisham read a piece in the New York Times about Ronnie Williams of Oklahoma, and was intrigued by his story. So after some preliminary work, he spent the next 18 months digging through the Ron Williams history, which included interviews with family, law enforcement, and going over the case transcripts and much more work for this book. And how an author who comes out with a best seller every year has time to research this story for 18 months is beyond this blogger’s imagination. Either Grisham has a clone or he is a serious workaholic.

The book is a good read. After the first five chapters or so, you figure out who is going to take the fall for a crime that they didn’t commit (If your like me and have no knowledge of the actual story which made national news). There are some fairly gruesome details about an actual murder, but it is not any worse than anything you would see on a legal drama on broadcast TV these days.

The injustice of a small town justice system is the theme, and the victim is bounced around without being given a fair chance. This book shows how an innocent man can be set up to fall due to bad police work, a bad public defender and a home town judge who wants to get reelected. For example, the ‘Innocent Man’ is given a public defender that is blind, and can’t dispute any of the shoddy physical evidence that is brought before the trial.

Now this isn’t like the TV series, The Fugitive, where the main character is squeaky clean and easy to relate with. This Innocent Man has a shady history with some serious character flaws and mental health issues, but the fact still remains that he was sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit.

This book is enjoyable if you are a true crime fan or you are a fan of the author, or if you just like a good legal drama, as this reads just as good as any legal fiction that is put out.

And a fair warning for readers of the paper back version (the hardback version may be the same, I don’t know) but the pictures inserted into the middle of the book reveal the ending of the book, so don’t look them over if you don’t want to know what happens. They’re not huge spoilers, but they are big enough.

--JT.

My ink on Blood Merdian

Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy, originally pulped in 85.

I read this book twice now, finishing an audio version just recently. I know I will read it again, and I know that ever after that reading, I will still wonder what all I have missed in this complex and compelling read.

A quick google search of the book will let you know what people think and feel about this book about the expanding west and a lawless time. Some will say that it is satirical and holistically symbolic of the violence regarding the western expansion of the young US. Some will say it is a detailed account of men with no inhibitions, that become collectively scarier than any monster ever created in the horror genre, or some will say that it is a deep and symbolic book with Gnostic overtones and other historical accounts on every page, dripping with violence.

But this book, quite simply, is about satan on earth. This is a book about the devil, and it is a detailed account of how he takes a group of men and ravishes the country side. This devil is not a brute or some stereotypical baddie, but personifies science, law, modern philosophy, culture and at times even civil behavior. But this is all without love, faith or god. He exhibits all qualities that society holds dear and strives for, but leaves out what makes us our best.

This is Cormac McCarthy’s way of telling us that no matter how advanced we become, no matter what new technologies we bring, and no matter how ‘just’ we make ourselves out to be, that without love, we are nothing and we are inherently evil.

The amount of violence in this book is appalling, and it is not for the squeamish. But after that qualifier, if you can get past it, this is a marvelous read that is difficult to get out of your mind once you put it down. Others have made this comparison, so this is not original here: but this book reminded me of first time that I read Moby Dick, in that the details of an expedition were given in such real and brutal words, that the violence and conflict don’t seem out of place or they don’t seem to be used simply as a plot device, but as a central and necessary part of the story. The story is violence.

Judge Holden is by far the scariest monster ever put to fictional page, and you are left with a want for justice once this book is done, but McCarthy doesn’t give it to you, like in many of his reads, he won’t let you off easily.

Justice isn’t served, and you are left with your fists clenched and your teeth grinding, but you want to read it again.

Until The Next Read--JT