I hate to alarm anyone, but it's getting pretty close to Christmas now. Two weeks and two days. My advent calendar is well and truly begun, and my shopping? Ah. I promised myself I'd be so organised this year, that I'd plan to buy a present or two every week from about October. This did not happen. I so far have bought several mini-presents, and nothing substantial - nothing from anyone's list. This is not a good start, I do not wish to do all my shopping on Christmas Eve. Again. So here's to actually getting rid of this cold and being able to go out to the shops!
As I have been pretty much bed bound by this bizarrely lengthy cold-type illness, I have spent a lot of my time doing unproductive things, as documented before. My current occupation, as well as keeping an eye on those penguins, is reading a thick book containing five children's novels called The Dark Is Rising Sequence. I started them on Sunday, and have just begun the last in the sequence this afternoon. They are fabulous. More serious, and somehow more timeless than Harry Potter, and yet not so serious as the His Dark Materials series. Both those sets of books I love too, and I'm pleased to have a new and excitingly different series to love.
This book, written by Susan Cooper, was given to me by a brother-in-law of mine a couple of Christmases back, as a book that he had read when he was growing up and, knowing the kinds of thing I like, thought I too would enjoy them. I read the first one not long after, put it down and promptly forgot about it. I'm glad it came to me to start reading them now.
The constant struggle between Good and Evil is a story told over and over again, and this book is a stellar example. I am a writer, with several unfinished stories biding their time until I am able to give them thought, one of which may well be another telling of this battle, though until now I have never seen it as such. I think now I have it is giving me a clearer imagining of how it should go. It is not the same as those mentioned above - and I wouldn't suppose to think myself as nearly a skilled writer as those - but I can see similarities. The good and evil forces in those books are incredibly cut and dried, Good is good and Bad is bad. My story has many more shades of grey to it; good can be bad and bad can be good, more along the lines of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, which I tried not to take as my model, but to keep in mind. It is interesting to me that this last book has become famous and particularly successful thanks to the musical Wicked that was based on it. The musical necessarily de-complexes the story, making it appear more black and white. This is something to think about in relation to my own story.
No time now though, with the speedy onslaught of Christmas and essay deadlines approaching, I should not spare too much time for other thoughts. I am enjoying sparing time for blogs though. I am only following a very few - I could waste hours of my life on the internet if I let myself - but am so far finding the experience enlightening, both the reading and writing of such. It is always fascinating to hear the thoughts of people who are different to you, with different views on the world, and yet close in friendship and/or interests.
One last thing: the ladybirds are relentless. They are beautiful creatures, and useful too, but they do not seem this way when they keep appearing in one's bed and curtains. I have no idea how to help them, other than explaining patiently that these places in particular are not suitable for hibernation. I don't know where is suitable, and I'm dreading the day that I take something from a drawer or under my bed, and disturb hundreds of the things from their peaceful slumber. I hope they find somewhere out of my way - I would of course not intentionally disturb them, but I live in constant fear of doing so. Well, not quite constant, and not quite fear. They are becoming a bit of a nuisance, but hopefully by the time I come back from my Christmas holiday they will have secreted themselves away somewhere they can be safe until spring.
Good and Bad can certainly be hard to distinguish at times - but sometimes the difference is very clear. If only someone would tell the Liberal Democrats!
ReplyDeleteThere's a film called The Dark Is Rising. It's also known as The Seeker. May be based on the books you mention. It's rubbish, so don't bother watching it. Clearly trying to adapt a novel in that way where everything has to be cut and nothing makes sense.
ReplyDeleteDaysee: Too true.
ReplyDeleteRebecca: That sounds suspiciously like a terrible adaptation of this book indeed. In the second in the series the main character is also known as the Sign-Seeker. Hmm.
I can confirm that "The Dark is Rising: The Seeker" is indeed based on the Susan Cooper books. I was quite excited when I heard they were making a film, but the end product only captured my attention for twenty minutes at most. It seems they took the original ideas and characters, made them American (I mean, seriously?) then dumbed them down and kiddified them so as to make them more easily digestible for the Harry Potter generation (which, let's face it, has only ever been one step removed from Barney the Talking Dinosaur)
ReplyDeleteThat's a real shame, it could make a fantastic set of films! Now I'm not ill and therefore not sitting in bed constantly reading, I really miss it! I'm on the last book and I want to know what's happening, but I have things to do! :(
ReplyDeleteCertainly since the success of Harry Potter there has been a substantial trend of adapting children's fantasy series books into a film and nearly all are so rushed that they can never be anything but utter failures and don't get any more made. This is a serious shame, as kids' films are often the best films when done well. The 80s was good to us in both kids' and fantasy films and more time needs to be spent now to make modern films thoughtful, funny, exciting and kid-like. I was impressed by Monster House and Super 8 for these reasons.
ReplyDelete