Do the write thing

Coming up next ...

2012-01-18T20:30:00.000+01:00

I have a few new pieces coming up in various magazines, journals and anthologies.

First up is a short reflective essay on writing in a foreign language in the 6th issue of Inkspill magazine. The mag publishes great fiction, nonfiction, poetry and art pieces so have a look at it. You can also download the issue to your iPads here.

Second, a short story 'Don't Mocha Me' will appear in the Australian journal Islet which is part of the renowned Island Magazine. The publication is a bit delayed from December 2011, but it should be online soon-ish.

I also wrote a short story for the Machine of Death Vol. II. The first anthology was a major success, a bestseller on Amazon, and now the second volume is being put together by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo and David Malki.

One year anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan is coming closer. The anthology, New Sun Rising, although supposed to be published last year, is now set to come out in March 2011. Let's hope there won't be any more delays and the book will indeed get published soon. It will contain one of my haikus.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

2012-01-07T13:44:00.000+01:00

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

J. K. Rowling

I wasn’t so much impressed with the adventurous elements inHarry Potter’s first book, as I was drawn into the story of Harry’sdevelopment. He goes from a downtrodden, rejected orphan to a confident sportshero and resourceful wizard. The friendships he begins along the way areanother attractive aspect of this book. Although very different in characters,he and Ron connect instantly, at first it seems more as a way to be stronger intheir fight against the common enemy (Malfoy), but then that grows into agenuine friendship.

Hermione joining their group is even more interesting.Rowling received a lot of criticism for her portrayal of female characters,particularly in the first few books. She supposedly wrote Hermione as abookish, priggish and all-around annoying character whose only value in the booksis in her encyclopaedic knowledge. But the way we see her in this book alreadyexplains that this is nowhere near the truth. We first see Hermionethrough Harry’s and Ron’s eyes, and yes,she does seem an annoying know-it-all. But once the boys accept her into their midst, we get to know her truecharacter and we see that Harry and Ron, too, have realized she’s so much morethan just a nerd. And as the readers we identify with Harry’s point of view andbegin to see her through his eyes.

The beauty of Rowling’s characterization is that she doesn’tchange the character, rather she changes our perception of her so that we seeher other side, new dimensions and features that make her a well-rounded,authentic girl. This is further shown towards the end of the book when Hermioneherself comments on her bookish knowledge. When Harry says she’s a betterwizard than him, she replies, “Books! And cleverness! There are more importantthings – friendship and bravery.”

As to Hermione’s importance in this adventure – the factthat Ron is the first of the trio to be left behind goes to show that girls arejust as important as boys in Rowling’s world. Of course, both Ron and Hermionehad to be left behind because they are only Harry’s helpers and he as theprotagonist or main hero needs to finish the task on his own. But Hermionekeeps her cool when faced with Snape’s logical puzzle and helps Harry and thengoes back to help Ron and call for help.

The formation of these friendships and the characterdevelopment together with the magical world building that Rowling is a masterof are the best features of this first book in the series. Its relativeshortness (220 pages) makes it a charming reading and a fun and lightintroduction to the series that will later on transform into an epic struggleof good against evil.

Memorable quotes:

Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a nameincreases the fear of the thing itself. (Dumbledore, p. 216)

To the well-organized mind, death is but the next greatadventure. (Dumbledore, p. 217)

The film

Almost as a rule I prefer books to their film adaptations. Althoughthe story and plot hasn’t been changed much for this film, I still prefer thenovel. One of the reasons for this is that the book allows me to use myimagination and a certain amount of individual interpretation. On the otherhand I must say that the special effects like the three-headed dog and the dragon were stunning. However, I thinkthe film is more appropriate for younger audiences while the book can beequally enjoyable for adults.

the Harry Potter reading challenge

2011-12-28T15:51:00.000+01:00

Six years after I wrote my Master's thesis on the Harry Potter series I decided to re-read the books. And to make it more fun, I'll join the Harry Potter reading challenge on this blog. You're welcome to join us, either by doing the challenge yourself or by adding your thoughts in the comments section to my posts about the Harry Potter books.

The idea is to read one book a month, starting with January 2012. I hope to be able to follow this schedule although after March it'll be harder to find the time to read.

It's been a while since I last immersed myself into the magical world of HP and I'm really looking forward to re-acquainting myself with the compelling characters and stunning wizarding scenery that J. K. Rowling created. I'm curious how this re-reading will affect my views of the series that I wrote about in my thesis.

To kick this off, here are the links to my two essays about the Harry Potter series:

Understanding racism and sexism in Harry Potter

and

Harry Potter book series - trivial or not?

http://thereadingfever.blogspot.com/2011/11/2012-harry-potter-reading-challenge.html

Flash fiction: Language misadventures

2011-12-01T09:25:00.000+01:00

Posted as part of the Language>Place blog carnival.

Language misadventures

The scorching heat meant crowds, shopsemptied of water and beer, and above all, it meant good business. It was theSaturday in July just before the Metalcamp started. Vera had never cared muchfor music, but she was also not judging people with different taste. In thisbusiness, you couldn’t afford to be narrow-minded. This didn’t mean she wasn’t waryof strangers, but if her next guest was pierced all over his face, wearingblack leather vest with a heavy chain pulling his pants down over his protruding hipbones, that didn’t make his money worth any less.

“You have a room?” he asked and pointed tothe board outside her house that advertised she was letting two rooms,including breakfast and free use of herback yard where the quiet and shade made it as close toparadise as was possible in this heat.

“Ja,” she nodded. Yes. When she went toschool fifty years ago, they didn’t learn English. She frequented a seminar onEnglish for beginners this past winter, but while she knew all the correct answersin the classroom, she had difficulty remembering the right words when faced with asituation in real life.

Just as she was about to reach for the keysfor the single room, a woman in her late twenties pushed open the door,pulling a large bag behind her, and spoke to the man in another language. She was ashorter, thinner version of the man. Even her hair was as short as his and if anything,she had more piercings and a large tattoo on her neck.

“For two?” Vera asked, holding up twofingers, proud that she remembered that one. Although she wasn’t quite sure howthey would know that she meant ‘for two’ and not ‘four two’. Foreign languagescould be very confusing.

“Ja, to,” the man agreed.

She raised her eyebrows. What was he onabout now?

“Two people,” he said and pointed betweenhimself and the girl. “’To’ is Danish for two.”

Vera was still staring. Letting her roomsmeant good money especially in the summer, but it was hard work getting it outof people.

“Danmark?” he said.

“Ah, Danska.”

He smiled, nodded and raised two fingers.“To.”

“’Dva’, in Slovene.” Vera repeated hisgesture.

“Dva.”

“Girlfriend and I … looking for a room.”

Vera pulled a frayed notebook from thedrawer in her desk. She held up her hand, “Pasaport?”

He nudged the girl to hand him her passportwhile he dug his own out of his vest pocket. Vera entered their names andaddresses in her notebook and then asked them to sign it.

She led them down the hallway and openedthe door to their room. It was a nice room for a couple, she thought, with a queenbed, bright striped curtains, a side table with fresh flowers, and a TV – anold set but with plenty of channels to choose from.

“Nice,” the girl said, but when Vera juststared back, she – Freya, said her passport – gestured to the room, lifted her thumbsas a sign of approval and smiled widely.

Vera blushed. “Hvala.” Thank you.

Then she walked to the French window,opened it and gestured for them to follow her. She spread her arms with prideglimmering in the sheen of sweat on her face. She pointed at them and then atthe garden. “Lahko ga uporabljata kadar koli,” she said. You can use it anytime. They understoodwithout understanding.

“Tusind tak,” Freya said, while Jens kickedoff his sneakers and socks and ambled barefoot on the soft grass, kept greenonly by watering it every evening. The lawn was framed with flower beds andbushes to the right and a vegetable patch to the left, with a herb bed inbetween. It was there that Jens nowwalked, stooped down, caressing the fresh buds of basil.

“Herbs,” he said like anyone neededexplaining.

When Vera approached him, he pointed to arich green bush. “Rosmarin.”

“Yes, yes,” Vera said, excited that sheunderstood. “Rožmarin.”

Jens grinned, showing his uneven frontteeth. He plucked a leaf of basil, crushed it in his fingers and smelled itwith his eyes closed.

“Basilikum.”

“Bazilika,” Vera said like an echo.

“Lavendel.”

“Lavanda.”

“Salvie.”

“Salvija,” Vera replied more and moreenthusiastic that they finally found a subject they could both understand evenif speaking in different languages.

When he stopped with “Persille,” and shesaid, “Peteršilj,” he already held a large bunch of herbs in his hand.

As she watched him speaking, Vera wonderedwhether the ring in his upper lip didn’t hurt.

“If you …” He looked at Freya for help, butshe shrugged.

“If I use your kitchen, I cook fantasticpasta.”

Vera thought she understood the word‘pasta’, but why was he talking about paste?

“Kitchen?” he repeated and shook the herbsin his hands, rising up from the grass where he had been kneeling.

Vera shook her head, her brow furrowed.

He tried with Danish. “Køkken?”

“Kuhati?” She imitated stirring.

“Ja!” He enunciated the words like speakingto a child. “I” – he pointed at himself – “cook” – the stirring gesture – “you”– pointing at Vera – “fantastic” – kissing his fingertips – “pasta”.

Although his s’s sounded more like sh, Veralaughed. “Ah, pašta. Špageti.”

“Yes.”

Their satisfaction at finally coming to anunderstanding was interrupted by Freya chuckling behind them. They hadcompletely forgotten about her. She was now lying on her back on the grass, theankle of one leg propped up on the bent knee of the other, smoking a cigaretteand staring at the cloudless five o’clock sky.

She lifted herself on her elbows. Her lipswere turned up in an amused expression. She pointed at Jens and said inrough-sounding English, “You are Danish, she is Slovene. You talk Italian.” Shegestured wildly like a Sicilian taxi driver and giggled.

Jens and Vera laughed. Bodies were so mucheasier to understand, Vera thought. Pierced or painted, or just a bit morerounded like hers, making a rude gesture or hugging someone, you didn’t need aseminar on interpreting. Food was the same. A good gravy smelled delicious inany language.

My road signs

2011-10-18T13:17:00.000+02:00

Sometimesit’s not the streets and road signs that lead us, but things that are even moredeeply rooted in us, things that are like an internal compass, a needleconstantly pointing the right way in order for us not to get lost in the maze of everyday life. For me, it’s the tworivers I grew up with and lost sight of when I moved to my new home.

Just days ago we celebrated the first Soča river day.While writing a poem in my mother tongue to celebrate this, I realized I wasstruggling to find the right rhythm, suitable words, revealing metaphors. I’vebeen writing in English for so long that I lost touch when it came to my mothertongue, I lost sight of my road signs. My inner compass got rusty and needed some cleansing and nudging topoint in the right direction again.

Soča

Vsak večer

sonce nad hribi postoji,

da za trenutek, dva še ujame

svoj odsev v smaragdnem ogledalu.

Ob mraku mesec neučakan

se zaguga med oblake

in očaran od lepote tvoje

pijano razlije mesečino čez dolino.

Še čas postane (sanjav), ko se tvoj deviški

tok kot glasbene note

čez kamne preliva v melodijo –

se le zdi ali res namiguje, mamljivo šepetaje

na uho, da lahko je od tod oditi in kot ti

odteči dalje, domačo strugo zapustiti

in se razliti čez tuje planje?

Morda.

A ko okusiš prve slane solze, ko se sloji

te doline odluščijo iz trudnega spomina

in ostane le usedlina domotožja,

te zamika, da bi se vrnila, vem,

saj se jaz kot sonce, mesec,

vračam spet in spet, duša izgubljena,

v ta tihotni svet,

da bi zrla in vpila vase

tvoj bistri šepet, tolažbo matere.

The Soča

Everynight

thesun lingers over the hills

tocatch another glimpse or two

ofits reflection in the emerald of you.

Atdusk, the moon

swingsimpatiently amongst the clouds

anddrunk from your beauty

spillsthe moonlight across the valley.

Eventime slows (like in a dream)

asyour virgin stream spills over

thestones like notes into melody

that seems to murmur temptingly that it is easy to leave here

andlike you move on to foreign shores,

acrossunknown plains.

Perhaps.

Butwhen you taste the first salty tears,

whenthe layers of the valley peel

fromyour tired memory and the sediment

ofhomesickness is all that’s left,

you’retempted to flow back, I know,

forI, like the sun, the moon,

returntime and again, a lost soul,

tothis quiet place

tostare and drink in

yourclear whispers, a mother’s lullaby.

Language > Place, edition 9

2011-08-22T08:53:00.008+02:00

Individuation / Assimilation

At first, my suggested theme for the 9th issue of the Language > Place blog carnival was ‘isolation/integration’ but it seemed a bit too academic. ‘Individuation/assimilation’ seemed to encompass wider topics and spheres of life, writing, language and place. Little did I know just how wide interpretation it offered.

Soon after the first submissions started coming in, this wideness started to evolve as another theme of the issue. A lot of the contributors didn’t feel sure their submissions would fit the frame of the issue, that their interpretations were too far off, too odd and unusual. Perhaps the poems and stories and art are 'odd' and suggest unconventional understandings of the suggested theme, but that in itself makes this theme come full circle by every contributor expressing their ‘individuation’ through their unique interpretation of living between two worlds.

Now, let's start this journey around the globe ...

Europe

In an interesting combination of art and a short commentary, Sandra Davies paints the stories of family members who migrated to London and as a result felt dislocated from their birth places.

Cathrine Lødøen explores how the fact that she grew up abroad affected her (linguistic) assimilation and coloured her identity with a tinge of foreignness. In this poetic journey she asks: ‘When will I come home?’

In an assimilated individual reflection, Dorothee Lang is moving from big cities to small towns, tinkers with homonyms, and follows 2 flash streams in: "Home, the road, and the global village”

Julia Davies muses on the foreignness of dreams, and missing the language to describe dream places. "I have whole dream architectures in my head, I don't just miss a plane, I miss a plane at "The Dream Airport"...” Let's take off.

Sheree Mack shares her poem On a faint hum of red.

“Our destiny is closed intact

branding heart, body and soul."

Georgia Panteli currently lives in the UK, pursuing her PhD in Comparative Literature. Before that she lived in Vienna for a while and there she filmed a short film about how the city is perceived by newcomers and immigrants. See how they experienced living between languages and cultures here.

Jean Morris's photos speak for themselves.

Where are the limits of us as individuals on this global stage? How to recognize them and decide whether to embrace or refuse them? Brigita Orel builds a house she will live in.

Asia

It's not easy leaving one's job and home to immerse oneself into a foreign culture in order to learn their language. The sight of good luck tags was a sign for Swati Nair, a welcome to the new temporary home.

Nicolette Wong ponders on how assimilating the river mud is. "By the river, all traces of a person disappear into mud for those who do not see."

North America

Visual artist and writer from Florida, Steve Wing, asks, through a combination of words and photo, how do we establish our identities as individuals? Do we, at all?

Christiane Alsop lives is in the US although she is German by birth. She still dreams in both languages, she writes in the second and she found her home in between.

Rose Hunter says: “These banana leaves took place as I like to think of it, in Sayulita, Mexico, which is about an hour north of where I live, in Puerto Vallarta. The relationship the poem refers to also took place there (past tense). I am still trying to assimilate that. Relationships have a lot to do with these two concepts (of assimilation and individuation) I think, like trying to decide what color someone is, or what animal.... When looking at a person you're involved with it's hard to see that person I think. Perhaps even impossible. A fungus hasn't got any eyes, after all.”

Oceania

Martin Porter, living in New Zealand, says: "Pasifika Queen Mab is an act of cultural dislocation and assimilation. It alludes to the worlds of 16th century Britain and modern New Zealand, childhood and adulthood, the faery and the real world, migration, inclusion, isolation and loneliness."

And finally a collaboration of several authors who ponder the meaning and significance of the German vowel mutation, called the Umlaut. What does the Umlaut see when it looks into the mirror? Ron Kostar, Rose Hunter, Jeffrey Brautigam and Dorothee Lang try to answer the question with a poem by Brigitta Firmenich.

Invitation

Edition #10 will be hosted by poet and artist Sheree Mack. A resident in the North East of England, Sheree blogs in many places but the most frequent one, that is every day, is everydaycreativity3.

The featured theme for edition #10 is “The Heart and Soul of the Cultural Landscape”, but as always, a wide range of contributions is welcome. The edition is planned for late September 2011. Submissions are open September 1 – 20. More details here.

Language > place

2011-08-22T07:48:00.002+02:00

This is a poem, written for the 9th issue of Language>Place blog carnival.

The house I will live in

The rhythms of my tongue lie

buried in the safe in my mama’s house.

The poetry of home

is now foreign to me, not due

to the lack of words I left behind,

but lack of meanings I haven’t yet learned.

I know not how to speak

and will anyone understand

or want to?

Hiding in a place with no windows

but also no walls,

I speak a language with a single speaker,

language in which every word is a (life) sentence.

If a tree falls in a forest …

If no one hears what I say …

To whom do I hand over my memories

if there is just me

and from where does the echo

bounce off

in this desert of lostness?

My essence condenses into rocks

I will use to build a house.

It will define where I begin and end

in this world village of no limits

and I will open the windows

and let in the air tainted

with foreignness, tujost, estraniazione,

étrangeté … and make it my own.

2011-08-15T16:35:00.000+02:00

You have until the end of the week (August, 20th) to submit your work for the 'Individuation/Assimilation' issue of the Language & Place blog carnival. The theme is not mandatory, however, and essays, photographs, art, poems or any other work on the theme of language and place is very welcome, including travelogues, reflections on bilingual living, (mis)understandings, and abroad encounters with other languages.

To read more about Language & Place blog carnival, go here. You can join its Facebook page. For instructions on how to submit, browse this site.

Language > place blog carnival invitation

2011-07-21T13:14:00.001+02:00

It's just a few days now until the 8th issue of language>place blog carnival goes online. This issue will be hosted by Walter Bjorkman on his blog, Qwik-Bake Synthetics. Until then you can visit issue 7 at Julia Davies's cyber home, Practice Makes Perfect.

In August, I will be hosting issue 9. The suggested theme for it is "individuation/assimilation". The theme is not mandatory, it's just an idea that maybe triggers your thoughts and creativity to explore its various meanings. How do you feel about globalisation? Do you feel isolated if you write in your mother tongue but live in a foreign country or vice versa? Some think that introducing foreign concepts into a language is akin to pollution, some see it as an enrichment. I think there's a thin line between keeping one's individuality and striving to reach the outer world with one's writing. How much to adapt? How far can you go with your originality? How many different positions are there on this topic?

To read more about Language>Place blog carnival, go here. You can join its Facebook page. For instructions on how to submit, browse this site.

Submissions for issue 9 will be open from 1st till 20th August 2011.

Language > place

2011-07-03T10:46:00.001+02:00

How do you get used to not being used to this new place?
How do you get used to not being used to the old one anymore?

My hometown exists in layers. Magma, limestone, brown earth, juicy green with sparkling rivers and brooks, cerulean atmosphere, long a’s where there should be o’s, dark sounds of heavy metal (more often under- than above ground), the discomfort of hugs, and certainty of loyalty. With each step further away another layer peels off until there’s just the boiling magma of homesickness left.

What do I miss? The metaphor

of isolation in how we rarely hug and kiss.

The symbol of unity in how the houses

huddle together along narrow streets

boxing you in when you try to escape.

The fierce rhythms of the rough but

melodious dialect.

The cadence of Friday afternoon traffic.

The beauty that gets more dazzling

The bigger the distance you’re watching from.

The comfort of home wanes with the rattle of the train wheels, the memory is distracted with new music and words, but the longing is permanently (in the) present (tense).

Mom used to tell me to scatter ashes around plants and seeds and flowers. New things grow out of the ruin of the old. New life will spring in my place when I die, but the memory remains, persists, breathes, aches and forever maintains your link to that one place.

On rejections

2011-06-16T09:27:00.000+02:00

After this latest batch of rejections, I decided to take a break from submitting my work to magazines. I understand rejections and I accept them, but they nonetheless sap my will to write. Because honestly, no matter how used you get to them, they hurt.

The worst are the ones of the 'great work but our next issue is already full' variety. If it's a deserved rejection because the work is not good enough, I can take it. I'll go back to the drawing board and re-write it. But when you give me the impression that I'm not getting published because I submitted a day too late, that just makes me frustrated and sad. Because I'm having serious bad luck when it comes to submissions. Three of my submission emails got lost in cyber space just in the last two months so that my pieces never even made it to the editors. When I submitted to a magazine, years ago, and my story got longlisted, the mag went bankrupt even before it trimmed the subs down to a shortlist. The editor of another magazine that accepted my story, had a heart attack before publication. (I wish him a speedy and full recovery. Hopefully, it wasn't my story that triggered it.). If that isn't a motherload of bad luck, I don't know what is ...

So I need to boost my self-esteem with delusions of greatness. ;) And I can only do that if I don't have editors firing rejections my way.

2011-06-10T13:28:00.001+02:00

My blog as a graph. Get yours here.

Rose lady

2011-05-20T17:41:00.000+02:00

When I'm bored, all sorts of shenanigans ensue. For example, I'll tear a beautiful yellow rose to pieces just when it blossomed most beautifully. Oh, but I did it for a reason. Here's how it was ...

First, there was a rose ...

Then I tore it to shreds.

In the meantime, I dug some old water color pencils from my drawer and made a few blots on a paper that somewhat resembled a woman's head and torso.

And then I made this:

I played around with Photoshop a bit and this is the final result:

2011-04-29T07:22:00.000+02:00

Here's a bit of an update on new publications. It seems that I have periods when I publish a lot of stuff and then others when I don't have anything published. But I'm also submitting works in batches, so to speak, because I can only afford to write when I'm between projects at work.

The story, To Love or Be Haunted, a runner up in the Cinnamon Press competition and already published in their anthology Storm at Galesburg and other stories, was supposed to be re-published by Cantaraville in January but the chief editor fell ill and is in hospital. I wish him a quick and full recovery.

At the end of July, three of my poems, Forever, New Dimensions, and Thick Shades, will appear in Eunoia Review.

In late May, the collaborative work that I worked on with Catherine Lodoen for BluePrintReview will appear on the journal's blog. It was supposed to appear in BPR, but due to another lost email the submission got stuck in cyber space and didn't reach its destination in time. ;)

A photo of mine that I took in my hometown this past weekend will accompany one of Cathrine's poems in a future issue of the Kindred Spirit magazine.

For other published works, check this list.

Candied violets

2011-04-23T16:31:00.000+02:00

I ate ice cream with violets today. It was yummy!

Have you ever tried candied violets? It's easy to prepare them. You need a bunch of flowers in excellent condition and with stems still attached. Wash them carefully under gentle spray. Leave them on a kitchen towel for a while so they will dry.

Heat half a cup of water and one cup of granulated sugar so the sugar completely dissolves. Dip each flower into the mixture and then place on wax paper. Snip off the stems with scissors. Put them in a cool and dry place and dry them for about a day. Once they're dry you can store them in an airtight glass container. Bon appetit!

Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings by Hél`ene Boudreau

2011-04-07T19:59:00.000+02:00

Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings by Hél`ene Boudreau

Freak of nature takes on a whole new meaning...

If she hadn't been so clueless, she might have seen it coming. But really, who expects to get into a relaxing bathtub after a stressful day of shopping for tankinis and come out with scales and a tail?

Most. Embarrassing. Moment. Ever.

Jade soon discovers she inherited her mermaid tendencies from her mom. But if Mom was a mermaid, how did she drown?
Jade is determined to find out. So how does a plus-size, aqua-phobic mer-girl go about doing that exactly? And how will Jade ever be able to explain her secret to her best friend, Cori, and to her crush, Luke?

This summer is about to get a lot more interesting...

I read Helene’s first MG novel, Acadian Star, when I interviewed her for All Things Girl. So I knew I can expect another good book, but Real Mermaids really surprised me. It’s got a different tone than Acadian Star and Jade is a very different character from Meg Gallant. In fact, Jade is a terrific character, one that will have you rooting for her from the first page till the very last.

Jade has lost her mom so it hasn’t been easy for her for the past year, but she has a great friend in Cori and her dad is doing his best to replace her mom. But when Jade discovers that she’s a mermaid, things become complicated. And all sorts of crises ensue.

The characters are all wonderful. Jade especially is such a charming mix of teenage awkwardness, cleverness and her (mermaid) appeal that you want to meet her in person by the end of the novel. Cori and Luke are less complex but still intriguing enough to make them believable and likable characters. The scenes between Jade and Luke are laugh-out-loud funny and cute. The problems of a teenage girl without a mother are real and despite (or because of) them being presented through comedy they evoke sympathy in the readers and offer a glimpse at how hard it is when one loses a parent at such an early age.

The town of Port Toulouse seems such a nice, quaint little town from the descriptions that you’d want to actually visit it. The mermaid world, however, isn’t described any less wonderfully. All the history and details make it perfectly plausible. The same goes for Jade’s first few encounters with the mer-people and her reactions to them.

I know it’s pointless to say this after the four paragraphs above, but this review could be condensed in a simple sentence: this is an absolutely amazing book that you must read.

As if that is not enough, there’s a delicious recipe included at the end of the book. I tried it out and I must say I’m hooked.

See? Even in a blurry photo it looks delicious!

I can’t wait to read the two sea-quels of this novel.

Language>Place

2011-04-03T20:05:00.000+02:00

The newest edition of Language>Place blog carnival is now online, including my piece On translating. Check out all the others, too, as there are some fantastic poems, essays and photos in this Museum of Language & Place.

Do you write like a woman or like a man?

2011-03-28T21:15:00.001+02:00

Did you ever try the Gender Genie? I have, a couple of times. The Gender Genie uses a simplified version of an algorithm developed by Moshe Koppel from Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and Shlomo Argamon from the Illinois Institute of Technology. The algorithm is supposed to predict the gender of the author.

Every time I tried it (for some reason I find it fun) the results have always been exactly what I expected - that the texts I had analyzed were written by a woman. Until I tried it with my latest story. The Gender Genie claims it was written by a man!

Not that I find this a sign that my style has changed dramatically. That's just it. I can't see any difference in how this story is written compared to others, and yet it seems that there are some differences. The Gender Genie is not infallible, of course, but its basis is an algorithm that analyzes the use of words and this algorithm perceived a change in the way I use words. I now keep thinking about what I did different this time around. Not having a clear answer is driving me nuts.

It's all so tense

2011-03-23T22:03:00.001+01:00

I find it interesting how different texts require different tense. I don't know how other writers decide on which tense to use in a particular work they're working on, but for me it just sort of happens. Although sometimes I will later change the tense to see whether the past functions better if it was originally written in the present or vice versa. And sometimes the change will prove to be the better choice. But when I start writing, it's like the tense is already determined without me having any say in it.

I know some people abhor present tense in any kind of fiction, but when I write short stories I very often use it. It feels as if this tense that creates a sense of immediacy goes very well with the short, compact form of stories. Together they work to create maximum impact on the readers. It happens now, here, and then bam! it's all over in just a few minutes. One of my professors agreed about its impact and said that she prefers for short stories to be written in the present tense. I feel the same.

But when I started working on my novel for children, I wanted to use the present tense to create the same effect. However, as soon as my focus shifted from the tense to characters or plot, I inadvertently started using the past tense. So I had to keep going back and correct the tense. Finally, after thirty pages I had enough. I re-read a couple of pages and it sounded all wrong. This feeling of wrongness was so strong that it was ridiculous. I tried finding a reason for it, but I couldn't. I mean, there is no rule that says that children's books shouldn't be written in the present tense, is there? Still, I just couldn't use the present tense.

So I decided to check the books I used to read as a child and see which tense they use. It turned out that they were all written in the past tense (at least the ones I still have at home). So I'm thinking I'm just so used to reading children's books in the past tense that I can't imagine writing one using the present tense.

It's funny how sometimes you have no say in how certain aspects of your work are written. Certain things are simply meant to be, or not. You can't force it. And if you do, it reads wrong.

The real tragedy

2011-03-17T08:30:00.000+01:00

We're all worried about the goings-on at the Fokushima nuclear plant in Japan. It's a difficult situation that has everyone on edge, most of all the Japanese who have already survived two catastrophes within a few hours. After the earthquake and the tsunami, thousands are now left with no potable water, running out of food, and with no electricity to keep warm in winter. And it started snowing, too. And we're all focusing on Fokushima, creating panic, magnifying the consequences of the accident at the plant, and all the while forgetting about the true tragedy of this amazing nation.

I'm not saying, it's okay if radioactive substances escape into the atmosphere and that no one will be affected. But the first to suffer from this will yet again be the Japanese, not us, Europeans, and not the Americans. Even in worst case scenario, the radioactive cloud, if it reaches Europe at all, will be so rarefied that it will have little or no impact on us. Some nuclear physicists say even their measuring equipment might not detect the radiation in Europe. It will have far less effect on the people in Europe than an x-ray or tyroid exams with radioactive iodine have. Now, how many times did you have an x-ray and barely thought about the consequences of the radiation? The Chernobyl disaster practically happened next door, and we didn't get potassium iodide tablets, we just had to stay indoors for a few days and we survived. So there's no need for the reporters to create such panic because of the accident in Japan. Yes, the situation is critical and worrisome, but alarming people doesn't help.

Instead of accusing the Japanese of lying about the situation in the nuclear plant and condemning them because they didn't take action earlier, we could help. I'm pretty sure, they're doing everything they can to prevent the worst at the plant. Dozens of men and women in the nuclear plant are practically sentenced to death because of the amount of radiation they were exposed to while trying to avert the crisis and they will all probably die within a few years, possibly months, but they're still working at making the place secure for the rest of us. I think we should at least respect that instead of just cowardly fearing for our own health when there's little chance Europe will be affected at all.

We should stop pointing our fingers and do something instead. Let's help the homeless people from Sendai and the surrounding places. They need our attention right now, not Fokushima. If you can donate, do. If not, keep them in your prayers and thoughts. Whether you believe that praying works or nor, good thoughts will at least help stop this paranoia and help people focus on what really matters. When nature shows its deadly force, we must step together to survive, not blame each other for the mistakes we might or might not have made. No one is spotless. But we are stronger together.

If you have a dollar to spare, bid on my photo or someone else's in this Flickr campaign to help Japan. The money will go to a charity of your choice.

Or go here and bid on great books, on authors offering to name a character in their next book after you or dedicating their book to you etc.

Start bidding!

2011-03-15T16:20:00.000+01:00

You can now bid on one of my photos on flickr. The money goes for charities (of your own choice) that help the people of Japan. I'll make the print of this photo and send it to you. I pay for all the costs so that your entire contribution goes to charity.

http://bit.ly/e1r2J5

You can bid even if you don't have a flickr account. Just e-mail me with your offer and I'll put it in the comments. (brizitka2001 AT yahoo DOT com)

Spread the word, it's for a good cause! :)

2011-03-14T07:58:00.001+01:00

The images coming from Japan these days look surreal. The devastation caused by the earthquake and then a major tsunami is unbelievable. Even watching the photos, I'm unable to fully comprehend the enormity of this tragedy. The lost lives, the obliterated towns, the possibility of several nuclear plant meltdowns ... And now a volcano erupted again as if the quake and tsunami weren't enough.

But it seems the Japanese remain calm and collected. They're racing to cool down the faulty reactors, to rescue the trapped people, find the missing ones ... You don't see anyone desperately wailing and pulling out their hair, they're focused on doing the best they can in a crisis that no one can comprehend without having lived through it. They amaze me with their attitude and this makes me even more sad that such a catastrophe has befallen them.

There have been many worthy projects done for other catastrophes that have happened recently, such as the 50 Stories for Pakistan to help the victims of the Pakistan floods. Then, there was the 100 Stories for Haiti after the major earthquake that rocked Haiti a year ago, and now there's a 100 Stories for Queensland in the works to help the victims of the devastating floods in Queensland, Australia, in December 2010. I think the Japanese more than deserve a similar effort and all of us keeping them in our prayers and thoughts.

Photo © AP

UPDATE:
If you're an artist or writer, you can help by submitting stories, poems, manga (!) and artwork to New Sun Rising. All the money from the book will go to a charity providing relief efforts in Japan.

Similarly, you can offer your photos at an auction on Flickr.

Or you can visit this blog where authors will be auctioning off their books, critiques, mentoring sessions etc. that you can win by posting a comment stating how much you're willing to pay for a certain item. The auction starts today, 8am GMT. There are some awesome books and services auctioned!

That'll leave a mark

2011-03-08T17:16:00.000+01:00

MARKS

The long scar on Angela’s forearm was from when she had been six years old and she got caught up in the midst of the storm of her parents’ fight and was pushed into the glass coffee table. She cried more because her mother did than because of the pain. Her other arm showed evidence of the surgery that had straightened her bone after an open fracture from being ‘clumsy’ and falling down the stairs. When she had stepped in front of her mother, aged ten, she got the long snake-like S by her ear, so she now always combed her hair slightly onto her face to hide it. When she looked in a mirror, it felt like the S stood for shame or subjection. The scar on her upper lip, she had gotten that one from a slap for mouthing off. It wasn’t completely healed yet when she met Gwen who thought it gave her character – ironic, seeing how by that time Angela had become so despondent she rarely fought back. The scar above her right eye slashed through her eyebrow, halving it into two delicate crescents. That was the only one she had been responsible for, the one that Gwen loved to caress with her fingers as they lay side by said on quiet evenings. The three dots on her shoulder blade – the old man had extinguished a cigarette on her when she forgot to bring him beer, aged seven – symbolized the endless sentence of her life. The three thin lines on her wrist were nail scratches from a quarrel turned ugly when Gwen misunderstood and thought Angela was going to hit her, but she was just trying to make a point, honestly. The line that crossed those three out was from when she promised herself she’d had enough scars and that would be the last one.

Gwen got her first tattoo at fifteen when she got drunk with two older boys from her street. When mum saw the coiled snake on her shoulder, she cried. That saddened Gwen a bit, but not enough. When she got the blue butterfly between her thumb and forefinger she was in her reflective period, as she loved to call it, when she read Sartre and still thought she was heterosexual. Then came the teardrop under her right eye that cried ever since. She later regretted it, thinking it was too dramatic a statement. Oh, well. The anchor on her hip stretched when she gained some weight while dating Darlene, the chef. Still, it wasn’t a big enough anchor to keep her and Darlene together. ‘Tough love’ written vertically in Gothic letters on Gwen’s back commemorated the worst and the only fight she’d had with her best friend when he tried convincing her she liked boys after all. It ended with mutual accusations, the end of a life-long friendship and days of crying over the unfairness of life. When mother died of cancer, she had ‘Forever Mum’ inked on the shoulder under the snake. She realized too late she juxtaposed a snake and her beloved mum; she later told everyone that the words meant she was forever silent. No one believed her. She wrote her mum’s name on her left wrist instead: Moira. After being with Angela for six months, she had angel’s wings done at the nape of her neck, expressing her promise and devotion to Angela. She loved her dearly, thought it was for life. It turned out Angela’s marks were deeper and more lasting than her own and the relationship turned ugly. When she escaped Angela’s consuming love, she changed the wings into an eagle of freedom.

On translating

2011-02-25T18:41:00.000+01:00

Few people are aware of the importance of the translator when reading translated books. Not even all translators are aware of it. But I am sometimes awed at the difficulty of my work and responsibility that lies on me when translating a novel or story.

Translations can never be an exact rendering of the original text into another language. Some academics believe that translations are more a re-writing of an existing work than a translation in the traditional meaning of the word. Regardless of how we name the process, it is clear that any translation is in essence the translator's interpretation of the original text. The texts that are written in a language other than our mother tongue are always read in an intercultural position where the language (and culture) of the text meets with our own language and cultural background. Our understanding of such texts will inevitably be coloured by our personalities, cultures, socio-economic statuses and our knowledge (or lack thereof) about the original culture of the text. This is obvious even when we're only reading a book, but it is even more important when translating one.

The way we, the translators, interpret a text will influence our work and its result, the translations, and through this also the way the readers will later understand the text. We will invest parts of ourselves, our knowledge, emotions, education, sensibilities etc. into these translated works, so it is essential that we are aware of it. We hold the power over how a foreign text will be received by the readers and critics in our country; thus we must strike the exact right balance between being faithful to and respectful of the author and her or his creation, and being aware of what our audience wants and expects. In this sense, translating really is a re-writing of a text because we must consider an additional element of the text that the author didn't need to think about when first writing it. This is to some extent true for any kind of translations, but it is most important in literary translations - culminating in poetry translations where some argue that poems can't be translated at all. But this deserves a post of its own ...

On the other hand, it's also important that the readers reading books in translation are aware of the difficulties a translator faces when trying to render a story written for one target audience in a way that will make it understandable and enjoyable for an audience from a different culture.

I like the challenge of translating although I'm sometimes pulling my hair out trying to come up with a good translation for the simplest words and expressions. :-)

Jenny Valentine's Broken Soup

2011-02-21T17:39:00.002+01:00

This was one of the more touching YA books I've read recently. No wonder that Broken Soup by award winning Jenny Valentine received great reviews.

This is what the blurb says:

An intriguing, compelling and moving new novel from the award-winning author of Finding Violet Park. When the good-looking boy with the American accent presses the dropped negative into Rowan's hand, she's sure it's all a big mistake. But next moment he's gone, lost in the crowd of bustling shoppers. And she can't afford to lose her place in the checkout queue -- after all, if she doesn't take the groceries home, nobody else will. Rowan has more responsibilities than most girls her age. These days, she pretty much looks after her little sister single-handedly -- which doesn't leave much time for friends or fun. So when she finds out that Bee from school saw the whole thing, it piques her curiosity. Who was the boy? Why was he so insistent that the negative belonged to Rowan?

Occasionally, I felt that the style was a bit too distracting, pulling one's attention away from the story to the more stylistic, verbal elements, instead of emphasizing the plot, the characters and the message. It may be that this is because I was translating the book and thus paid more attention to stylistic elements than I would if I were only reading it for pleasure. On the other hand, one could also argue that the unique style matches perfectly the unusual protagonist, Rowan, and the remarkable story of grief, lost childhood, growing up and finding hope.

The characters in the book are all very memorable. Particularly Rowan with her big heart, tolerance, acceptance and understanding for everything and everyone. She's a much better person than I am and I wished, many times throughout the book, that I could be a bit more like her. But she's not the only character that stays with the reader. Her little sister Stroma, her new friend Bee, the charming Harper, even the dead brother she still mourns with their wonderfully diverse personalities all add something extraordinary to this enchanting story.

And the ending totally got me. At the same time, I was mad mad mad at Harper, but it also made perfect sense and it was only right that he followed his dream instead of changing just to please Rowan. These kinds of endings are the best, because they're not the cliché happy endings, but they are happy endings in the sense that they're hopeful, open, and more like beginnings than endings. Valentine wrote it perfectly.

Reading this story will leave a mark. I'm glad I had the chance not only to read it, but to translate it so it will be available to even more young readers.

It's only words

2011-02-15T09:48:00.001+01:00

A Wordle cloud from my short story collection that I wrote for my Master's:

Going black and white

2011-02-12T10:45:00.000+01:00

I dug out some of my old NYC photos and turned them black and white to see what they look like in that style. I like the results. Don't you? I have several photo sets that I like to look at over and over again. Photos from my NYC vacation from a few years back are among them. They bring back wonderful memories. Which are your favorite pics to look at and remember? B-day photos, travel photos, random snapshots?

My cup of coffee

2011-01-18T19:26:00.001+01:00

I love coffee, my husband would say I'm addicted. But I am convinced I could stop drinking it anytime if I wanted to. I just never really tried, that's all. I guess everyone working from home is a bit addicted to drinking coffee, not because we'd need its effects more than people working in offices away from home, it's just that we have the opportunity to make it anytime during the day. Actually, as often as possible is best because that gives us an excuse to get away from work for five minutes every couple of hours.

On the other hand, I don't think I'm exaggerating if I say I find the bitter taste of strong Turkish coffee an inspiration. It feels like my thoughts boil to the surface when I sit sipping the piping hot coffee, staring blindly into the distance somewhere, day dreaming, concocting the wildest characters and stories ... Plus, it helps ease my headaches.

But - yes, always that pesky but. But, now that I set out to write a story taking place in a coffee shop (inspired by the photo by Dima Gavrysh), I can't seem to get anywhere. I have the story, and the characters, but whatever I write just doesn't have the right atmosphere, that taste of a dark roasted blend with the light brown foam on top with dozens of rainbows in the tiny bubbles ...

Sigh. I need to go make some coffee.

Like Bees to Honey

2011-01-09T18:46:00.000+01:00

I finished reading Caroline Smailes' novel Like Bees to Honey that I won in a giveaway hosted by Bah! to cancer blog. I really enjoyed the book, I loved the style of writing, and the story, of course, which was dark and difficult but interspersed with enough funny moments so as not to make one feel utterly depressed. The scene where Tilly walks towards the light, reminded me of this place in Provence:

Show me your rainbow

2011-01-08T14:53:00.002+01:00

Language > Place: "A Place where I felt I really belonged"

2011-01-07T08:45:00.001+01:00

When I read the theme for this month’s language/place blog carnival – “a place where I felt I really belonged” – my first thought was: I have nothing to say about this. I’ve lived my entire life in my home country and have never left it for longer than a month. Yes, I write in English rather than my mother tongue and I also study at an Australian university where all my assignments, communication with classmates and professors, even thinking is done in English. Despite this, I have never lived outside my mother tongue environment, so to speak. So my initial response was that the only place I could think of where I felt I really belonged was my home country.

After a few moments, though, I began to think of another place that has become like a home to me, that has offered me the first opportunities to publish my work, where I found my first writing friends, helpful critics, resources etc. A place that essentially makes my studies in Australia possible. It’s not exactly a place, it certainly defies the three dimensions (in certain ways even the fourth one) that usually describe our environment, sometimes it resembles more a journey, a way to discovery rather than a place where one can exist. I’m talking about cyberspace (‘kiber prostor’ in Slovenian), of course.

Because I write in a foreign language, it was clear to me from the very beginning that I will not be able to get published in Slovenia. On the other hand, I was also physically removed from my target audience, from potential publishers, from my market. I suppose I should be more than grateful for having been born into this brave new world where signals comprised of zeroes and ones can flash across the entire planet in nanoseconds, cross boundaries, cultures, languages, even bad weather (well, not always). The web was the solution to all my problems. I could suddenly contact editors and co-writers and receive replies within minutes or hours; I can now discuss creative writing with professors living thousands of kilometers away in a different time zone. I have a perfect outlet for my work that has previously been sort of lost and pointless without an audience that would accept and – more importantly – understand it.

Of course, I’m still physically distant from my readers and perhaps I can’t establish such an amicable and close rapport with them as I would have had I the chance to meet them in person, but there are other advantage to ‘existing’ online that are not negligible. The first one I experienced early on was that rejection hurt less because it was less personal when done via the e-mail and when there was practically no chance for the editor who rejected me to know me personally.

I am a shy person and I don’t feel comfortable revealing myself to other people, writing, however, is inevitably very intimate, revealing, and deeply personal. So it was easier for me to publish at a venue that few of my friends and acquaintances visited; I felt less of a pressure to impress them and seek their approval. On the other hand, I also believe that publishing online where, at least in the beginning, I knew no one, the assessment of my work is far more objective and just. Perhaps I’m mistaken in this and editors rejected my work simply because they didn’t recognize my name, but at least I can say I never pulled any strings to get published because I had no strings to pull.

In short, cyber space is the place, the technology that made it possible for me to get published at all. It has made writing an exciting experience, a journey of constant learning, meeting new people, new cultures; it is a place where my choice to write in a foreign language is not a hurdle, and where my introducing of new, sometimes exotic concepts from my home culture into English is not only accepted, but welcomed. It’s place where everyone can belong.

To finish this off on a humorous note, here’s my poem about how cyber world has changed our l(i/o)ves:

Virtually in love

Lovesick, we’re terrified of losing connection –

a stroke of lightning might burn the relay

when our gushing romance winds its way

through optical fibers that overheat

from our passion, throbbing through cables

in zeros and ones and not the kisses of fables.

Is the affection any more meaningless

if expressed through binary arithmetic

instead of the gestures of the pathetic?

Is the heat less warm and authentic

if produced by the friction of electrons

instead of the kisses, caresses bygone?

Love in real time, perhaps, is more real

but break-ups are easier and hurt less

when it’s enough to unplug the wireless.

Understanding racism and sexism in Harry Potter

2011-01-01T07:30:00.000+01:00

**Understanding racism and sexism in HarryPotter and Hall's model of three reading positions**

SUMMARY

In the Harry Potter book seriesthere are several examples of sexist and racist stereotypes which can distortchildren’s understanding of reality and therefore cause them to adopt inappropriateprejudices and judgments. The reason for such strong impact on the youngreaders can be explained with the use of Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding modelthat suggests three reading positions and, as a result, three different ways ofunderstanding one and the same text. The fact that the oppositional reading,which allows the reader to asses the text critically, can only be adopted byeducated and well-read readers explains why adult help is needed in directingthe child reader towards a correct interpretation of such deficiencies of atext and offering a grounded explanation.

Key words: child readers, Hall’smodel, racism, sexism, stereotypes

**Understanding racism and sexism in Harry Potter and Hall's model of three readingpositions**

Introduction

Thereviews Harry Potter has received since publication have not all been positive. The serieshas also raised many controversies. Among them, the most frequent are thoseconcerning the racist and sexist portrayal of the characters in the books. Theunderstanding and correct treatment of such problematic topics mostly dependson the reader’s reading position. To explain these different interpretations ofthe text Hall’s model of three reading positions and its use will be presented.This will also help to show why such deficiencies of texts can be damaging for child readers and how to prevent readers fromoverlooking them. The second part of the article will deal with the most commonstereotypical portrayals and problematic issues in the Harry Potter series.

Hall’smodel of three reading positions

In his article “Encodingand decoding in the Television Discourse” from 1973, Stuart Hall develops themodel of three reading positions (Stankovič 2002, 36). In his opinion the factthat the message was sent does not necessarily mean that it has also arrived atits destination; it is even less certain that it will be understood in the waythe sender of the message predicted (ibid.). The public is not homogenous, rather, it consists ofdifferent groups of people who have very diverse experience and knowledge andwho have significantly different relations towards dominant ideologies. Butdespite the fact that each individual understands the message in a slightlydifferent manner, the fact that we live in similar if not the same culturesprevents major misunderstandings. “The television message is indeedpolysemantic (it has several meanings), but it is not entirely pluralistic (itdoes not have infinite set of meanings)” (ibid., 37, my translation).

Hall divides the ways ofinterpretation of a text into three groups (Chandler 2001):

1. thedominant or hegemonic strategy: the reader understands the message and decodesit in terms of the reference-code in which it has been coded. This position israre.

2. thenegotiated strategy: it acknowledges the legitimacy of hegemonic definitions,but at the more restricted, situational level, it makes its own rules – itoperates with exceptions to the rule by using particular and situated logics.

3. theoppositional code: the viewer understands the literal and the connotativeinflection given by the discourse, but decodes the message in a contrary way asa result of their individual knowledge.

These strategies for interpreting of texts arenot strictly detached. In everyday use they are interconnected and theboundaries between them are far from clear. Hall separated them for an easierinsight into the intricate system of the understanding of texts.

Inthe case of Harry Potter,the strategies for understanding of the text could lead to the following results: a dominant-hegemonic strategyis most likely among readers (especially child readers) from Anglo-Americanculture and of middle class. The images in HarryPotter are closest to these readers, they are familiar to them, therefore,there is little likelihood they would doubt them. This is true for a variety oftopics in these books, including issues as problematic as sexism and racism.Because of the innate denial or avoidance of such issues they appear assomething normal or unworthy of any special attention. As a result, such themesdo not rouse opposition in the readers.

Thenegotiated strategy is more likely among readers from different cultures: theirlocal particularities and experience become more evident in theirinterpretation of texts relative to how distant their culture is from theAnglo-American society. These readers might question the scenes in the boardingschool, the striving of the Dursleys to have a bigger house and a better carthan their neighbours, the rivalry among the schoolfellows at Hogwarts, theirdesire to have a better and newer version of the flying broom, the theme ofwitchcraft, etc. With this strategy, the cultural differences between readersaround the world become the most prominent. Through this the readers alsobecome aware of different cultures and they learn about them, which enablesthem to understand different societies more easily. Fromthe perspective of learning about cultures, this strategy is the mostimportant as the dominant strategy is only possible with readers who alreadyknow the culture presented in the book because they belong to it, therefore,they do not learn anything new about it; while with the oppositional strategy thecultural differences are not as important as the social experience, knowledge,and education of the readers.

Thethird, oppositional, strategy is mostly present among educated readers. Thesereaders can assess positive and negative aspects of a book, they can interpretthem within the context, and they are also able to refuse them if they deem itnecessary. There are few child readers who would be capable of this,consequently, it is essential that they have teachers and parents to directthem and to teach them the right interpretation of the text, because childrentake this knowledge into adulthood and then forward it on in the same form theyhave received it.

Tammy Turner-Vorbeck summarizesHall’s opinion about how it appears as if the media (and through them thehegemonic ideology) only reflect reality while in truth they construct it. Hallagrees with Louis Althusser’s supposition that mass media reproduceinterpretations from ideas which are embedded in symbols and cultural practicesin a manner that serves the interests of the ruling class. However, Hall alsoclaims that the mass media allow ideological struggles. Turner-Vorbeckquestions this:

However,how much struggle is really possible when confronted with a capitalistmarketing machine that seduces its public through normative messages consistingof comfortable, familiar images and the appearance of ‘good, clean fun’? Is itrealistic to believe that child culture can be a place of ideological strugglein the face of commodity fetishism? (Turner-Vorbeck 2003, 17)

Ideological struggle is questionablewhen we consider the influence of the marketing moves of the mega-corporations;especially in children’s literature, since the corporations create values andproject fabricated needs onto the consumers.In this way they rob the recipients of these messages of the standards for theassessment of the authenticity of these same messages. When we take intoaccount that traditions are dying out and that traditional values are no longervalid or they are at least not classified in the same priority lists, people have considerable difficulty finding a basewhich would help them orientate in the modern society of consumerism.Therefore, it seems it is also very difficult to take the oppositional stancein interpreting the texts as it is much easier to resign to the dominant orhegemonic strategy when we are being attacked from all sides with proofs thatthis is the only correct strategy.

The biggest problem with all this isthat, with the dominant-hegemonic position, readers tend to interpret thepresentations of certain troublesome issues as something normal and do notquestion their accuracy and justification. As already mentioned, two suchissues in the Harry Potter series aresexism and racism. With the dominant strategy of interpretation the reader willthink it completely understandable that women do not occupy the leadingpositions and that they do not have important roles. All the female charactersin the books are allegedly of secondary importance for the development of thestory. McGonagall is only the Headmaster’s assistant, Hermione is Harry’shelper and she never takes on the leading role, Petunia Dursley and MollyWeasley are housekeepers, etc. This is quite a generalization of the situationin the books, but if the reading is superficial, it might well result in thiskind of interpretation. It is therefore essential that parents and teacherswarn children of these issues and, in places where they are wrongly presented,explain where the problem lies and what solution would be better.

The same is true of racism. Therehave been several different explanations of thesituation in Harry Potter because the books introduce different races in themuggle (i.e. non-wizarding) world as well as different races in the wizardingworld. The readers encounter white people, African-Americans, Asians, and alsogiants, goblins, dwarfs, Veelas, and others. Some critics are unsatisfied withthe way some races are presented as superior in comparison to others (this is especiallyvalid of the different races in the wizarding world), or with the fact thatsome races are ignored while others are in the foreground (as readers we onlylearn that some of the students are of African-American descent in the thirdand fourth book, while the main characters are whiteand are constantly in the centre of attention). It is (nearly) impossible towrite a book which would represent all sexes, all races, and all religionsequally. But all in all, it is worth calling the attention of children to suchexamples as the fact that only those wizards who have lived their whole livesin the wizarding world are afraid of the giants because they have had this fearinured as children. On the other hand, Harry and Hermione do not fear thembecause they base their relationship towards Hagrid (a part-giant) only ontheir personal experience and therefore know that not all giants andpart-giants are dangerous. Child readers have to be stimulated to think aboutthese instances; only in this way can they come to understand the worldand people, our prejudices and false notions themselves. With this (pro)activeapproach they will learn considerably more and later on in their lives theywill be able to upgrade their knowledge and forward it to others.

Examples of racism

Inthe essay “Images of the privileged Insider and Outcast Outsider” ElizabethHeilman and Anne Gregory claim that Harry Potter incites racist thinkingbecause it “suggests that it is perfectly acceptable to fear differences amongpeople, and that there are differences that make certain people better thanothers. These portrayals of deep, biologically rooted difference can possiblyserve to reinforce readers’ notions of biological differences among races”(Heilman and Gregory 2003b, 253).

Theyfurther explain this by drawing attention to how the people and other magicalcreatures of mixed origins in the HarryPotter books are presented hierarchically. In their opinion, characterslike Hagrid and Madame Maxime, who are part-giants, and Remus Lupin, who is awerewolf, are shown like outcast outsiders in comparison to wizards like HarryPotter, Dumbledore, and others. A slightly more acceptable combination is thatof a Veela and a wizard as in the Frenchstudent Fleur Delacour.

Theseclaims are unfounded if we consider, when analyzing these examples, that therelation of the main protagonists towards these characters is rather different.When it comes to a child’s understanding of the reality the Harry Potter books present, it isessential how that reality is seen by the protagonist with which the child identifies himself during reading. In Harry Potter, nothing shows that Harryand Hermione would have any kind of prejudice towards Hagrid, Lupin or anyoneelse exclusively because they are not pure blood wizards. On the contrary,Hermione as a child of two non-wizards, i.e. muggles, proves to be an excellentwitch herself and has Harry’s complete trust – and with that she also gains thereaders’ trust once they see that it is not always important to be from an oldand well-off family and that the characteristics of an individual and their endeavoursto do right are considerably more important.

Thisperspective gains even more prominence if we compare Hermione to Draco Malfoywho is a descendant of one of the oldest pure blood wizard families. Spoilt,snobbish, and pompous Draco does not present himself to the readers in the mostcharming light. The way Ron immediately defends Hermione when Malfoy insultsher by calling her ‘mudblood’ (one of the worst insults for a wizard who is ofmixed descent) makes it obvious to the readers on whose side the ‘good’characters are and which principles are the right ones. It is unlikely anyonewould want to imitate Malfoy, particularly since most children identify themselveswith one of the protagonists: Harry, Hermione, or Ron.

Buteven the three friends differ. When Ron discovers that Hagrid is a part-giant,his reaction is different from Harry and Hermione’s. From his early age, Ronhas been taught that giants are evil and dangerous; that (false) belief hasalways been present in the wizarding world. On the other hand, Harry andHermione have grown up in the muggle world and have therefore never been taughtsuch prejudices. By showing that the ‘good’ people, too, have prejudicesRowling shows

thatprejudice and hatred are not something that other people do. These are powerfulbeliefs embedded in the culture, which all of us absorb and know, even thoughwe may not be conscious of ever having learned them. (Nel 2001, 45)

By making Ron react in a ‘racist’way and by showing Harry’s and Hermione’s effort to convince him otherwise andexplain the absurdity of such an attitude, Rowling deliberately draws attentionto this problematic issue, but although the conclusion to this situation ispedagogic, it is not moralizing precisely because it is Ron who acts wronglyand not one of the corrupt characters.

Solidarityis also shown through Hermione’s attempts to free the house elves who have towork for their masters without getting paid. Hermione founds a club which issupposed to help the elves to freedom and to inform them of their rights. Thistheme has been largely present in the fifth book in the story about Dobby andWinky, but it has not been completely developed yet as Hermione so far has notbeen very successful, partly because the elves themselves do not want to befreed. Maybe Rowling will dedicate a few more words to this theme in the lastbook in the series.[1]

Racism is also shown through Voldemort’s likeness to Hitler – the maincommon feature being Voldemort’s ‘impure’ origin. Lord Voldemort comes from amixed marriage: his mother was a witch, his father a muggle who left her whenhe discovered who she really was. Merope was already pregnant and she died atchildbirth. Lord Voldemort or Tom Marvolo Riddle spent his childhood in anorphanage. Despite his mixed origin, or maybe because of it, he is obsessedwith pure blood. If it were possible he would erase all mudbloods; this wasalso the reason for his killing his father’s second family – he tried to eraseall traces of his origin (Rowling 2005, chapter 17). Similarly, Hitler tried to breed an Arianrace, although he did not even remotely resemble this ideal.

PhilipNel develops the connection with Hitler and the Second World War even further. Notonly did Dumbledore defeat the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945 when the SecondWorld War ended; Nel also claims there is another association: “When it seemsas though a new war may be beginning near the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore delivers severalrousing speeches with distinctly Churchillian cadences” (Nel 2001, 44). Nel’scommentary refers to the part of Dumbledore’s speech where he says:

LordVoldemort’s gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fightit only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust. Differencesof habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and ourhearts are open. (Rowling 2000,605)

Examplesof sexism

Thesecond issue Elizabeth Heilman addresses in another of her essays, “BlueWizards and Pink Witches”, is sexism. She claims that “the Harry Potter books feature females in secondary positions of powerand authority and replicate some of the most demeaning, yet familiar, culturalstereotypes for both males and females” (Heilman 2003a, 222). She begins theexplanation of her theory by enumerating the number of female and male pupilsat Hogwarts: there are 29 girls mentioned and 35 boys. But all importantcharacters are males: Harry, Ron, Dumbledore, Malfoy, Black, Pettigrew, LordVoldemort and others. Even among the Death Eaters, the evil followers ofVoldemort, there is only one woman, Bellatrix Lestrange. Most of the irritating,but not evil adult characters, are female: Mrs. Figg, Professor Trelawney, RitaSkeeter, and Aunt Petunia. “Within the Ministry of Magic, the seat of power,all of the ministers are male except for Bertha Jorkins, who is described asgossipy and absentminded” (ibid.,223). This is true of the first four books. Book five, however, features a femaleamong the aurors, the wizarding police who are after the Dark wizards, Tonks Nymphadora. Additionally, thereis also the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Amelia Bones,and the senior undersecretary to the Minister for Magic, Dolores Umbridge, whois later, for a short time, also installed as Headmistress of Hogwarts.

“Malesare represented more often, but they are also depicted as wiser, braver, morepowerful, and more fun than females” (ibid.).Female powerlessness is most evident in the portrayal of Hermione who oftenshows signs of fear. As an example Heilman cites the attack of the mountaintroll when the boys have to save Hermione because she is merely crouchinghelplessly under the sink and screaming (Rowling 1999, 132). Hermione is supposed to be exceptionally intelligent, butnot brave or daring. Further, her knowledge is only of use to the boys whileshe does not know how to use it or cannot use it. This can be explained throughthe understanding of Harry Potter as a mythic hero. Both Hermione and Ron areonly helping Harry since he is the principal protagonist of the story(Nikolajeva 2003, 127). Although Heilman enumerates instances such as thePolyjuice Potion which helps the boys to sneak into the Slytherin House, and itgoes awry on Hermione so she has to stay behind; or when Hermione becomes‘petrified’ but still manages to aid Harry and Ron with the help of a note inher hand which reveals the secret of Salazar’s successor; it is important tostress that in the final battle Harry always fights alone because Ron alsofails half way. This happens at the end of each book: in The Philosopher’s Stone Ron sacrifices himself on the chessboardand Harry confronts Squirrel alone; in TheChamber of Secrets the ceiling of the tunnel collapses and Ron remainstrapped; in The Prisoner of AzkabanHermione helps Harry rescue Black and Buckbeak while Ron rests injured in theinfirmary; in The Goblet of FireHarry confronts Lord Voldemort while Ron and Hermione watch the competition fromthe stands for the spectators; in TheOrder of Phoenix Harry has several helpers, among them Ron, Hermione,Ginny, Neville, and Luna; in the sixth book, The Half-Blood Prince, Ron and Hermione stay at Hogwarts whileHarry joins Dumbledore in his search for a part of Lord Voldemort’s soul.

Anotherproof of Hermione’s bravery and daring is the scene in The Chamber of Secrets when she tries to convince the boys theyshould make the Polyjuice Potion:

Hermioneshut the book with a snap.

“Well,if you two are going to chicken out, fine,” she said. There were bright pinkpatches on her cheeks and her eyes were brighter than usual. “I don’t want tobreak rules, you know. I think threatening Muggle-borns is far worse thanbrewing up a difficult potion. But if you don’t want to find out if it’sMalfoy, I’ll go straight to Madam Pince now and hand the book back in …”

“Inever thought I’d see the day when you’d be persuading us to break rules,” saidRon. (Rowling 1998, 125)

Additionally,there are occasions in the series when male characters are scared (includingHarry) and they even cry, although Heilman claims this is not true (Heilman2003a, 225). The first example is Professor Gilderoy Lockhart:

White-facedand wandless, Lockhart approached the opening.

“Boys,” hesaid, his voice feeble. “Boys, what good will it do?”

Harry jabbedhim in the back with his wand. Lockhart slid his legs into the pipe.

“I reallydon’t think -” he started to say, but Ron gave him a push, and he slid out ofsight. (Rowling 1998, 223).

Anotheris Professor Flitwick who starts crying in the same book when he finds out themonster has abducted Ginny Weasley (Rowling 1998, 217). And although Heilman saysit would be unimaginable for Dumbledore to react as emotionally as ProfessorMcGonagall reacts in The Chamber ofSecrets (Heilman 2003a, 225) that is exactly what happens in The Half-Blood Prince:

Dumbledore openedhis mouth to speak and then closed it again. Behind Harry, Fawkes the phoenixlet out a low, soft, musical cry. To Harry’s intense embarrassment, he suddenlyrealized that Dumbledore’s bright blue eyes looked rather watery, and staredhastily at his own knees. When Dumbledore spoke, however, his voice was quitesteady.

“I am verytouched, Harry.” (Rowling 2005, 334-5)

Onthe other hand, it is Harry’s “stupid bravery” that solves all the problems.Here Heilman contradicts her own statement of male characters being depicted aswiser (Heilman 2003a, 223). It is true, however, that in comparison toHermione’s intelligence, prudence, and diligence, male characters, Ron andHarry in particular, could be seen as typically ‘dumb’ males who are onlyinterested in sports (Quidditch), and the newest models of sports cars (in thiscase the flying brooms) and who try to solve problems by running their heads against a brick wall. If we readthe books with this kind of understanding we can come across many instances ofstereotypical portrayals. But as already mentioned there are also situationsand examples which deny the stereotypes. It all depends on the perspective we assumewhile reading the books.

Heilman gives another example. In Quidditch,the goals scored by girls do not count much since the most important and thefastest ball is the snitch and the players chasing it are usually boys. Theonly female seeker is Cho Chang who, instead of searching for the snitchherself, trails Harry (ibid.,226). In The Order of Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince Ginny Weasley proves to be a very competentseeker when she substitutes for Harry when Dolores Umbridge forbids him to playQuidditch and later when he has to help Snape as a punishment. The concept ofnaturally competitive men is supposedly further reinforced by the fact that allthe captains are male (ibid.).In The Order of Phoenix Angelina Johnson becomes thecaptain of the Gryffindor team and she proves to be very competent consideringthe fact that three of the players in her team are forbidden to play and so shehas to find substitutes for them and win the game – a task in which sheultimately succeeds.

Furthermore,according to Heilman, the girls behave ‘girlish’ even during sports whenAngelina, Katie, and Alicia start to giggle when they find out they willcompete against Cedric Diggory, a tall, handsome boy (ibid.). Harry proves thatgirls are not the only ones sensitive to the opposite sex. When playing againstCho he is not willing to use the same methods as against Malfoy.

Harryaccelerated, eyes fixed on the speck of gold ahead – but just then, Choappeared out of thin air, blocking him!

“HARRY,THIS IS NO TIME TO BE A GENTLEMAN!” Wood roared, as Harry swerved to avoid acollision. “KNOCK HER OFF HER BROOM IF YOU HAVE TO!” (Rowling 1999, 217)

Heilmanclaims the female characters are presented in groups, their traits areschematic and sometimes they are completely hazy (ibid., 227). AngelinaJohnson, Katie Bell, and Alicia Spinnet form one group, Parvati and Padma Patiland Lavender Brown the second, and the third consists of Pansy Parkinson andMillicent Bulstrode. But in the same manner there are also groups among themale students: Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle (although Malfoy as Harry’s antagonistis presented in greater detail); Colin and Dennis Creevey; Fred and GeorgeWeasley and Lee Jordan and finally Seamus Finnigan and DeanThomas.

GinnyWeasley is “the archetypal girl and is presented as deeply passive, weak, andreceptive. She has a crush on Harry, which disables her” (Heilman 2003a, 230).Ginny corresponds to this description only in the beginning when the readersget to know her for the first time in TheChamber of Secrets. Through the following books she develops as a characterand matures. In The Chamber of SecretsLord Voldemort uses her and Heilman interprets this as proof of her helplessness.This experience, however, does not show her weak character, rather, it showsher maturity in the ability to learn from such an unpleasant event.

“Ididn’t want anyone to talk to me,” said Harry, who was feeling more and morenettled.

“Well,that was a bit stupid of you,” said Ginny angrily, “seeing as you don’t knowanyone but me who’s been possessed by You-Know-Who, and I can tell you how itfeels.” (Rowling 2003, 441)

Ginny does not go mute in Harry’s presenceanymore, instead, she tells him directly that he is acting stupidly and sheeven explains to him what it is like if Lord Voldemort possesses one. She alsovery successfully replaces Harry as a seeker in the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Duringthe school year she falls in love with a classmate as she has long forgottenher crush on Harry, but she breaks up with the boy at the end of the schoolyear when she realizes he values winning in Quidditch more than her. In thesixth book she shows determination and maturity, especially in comparison tothe quiet and shy person she was three years ago. First she takes Harry’s sidewhen he is confronted by Hermione, although she is her friend:

“Giveit a rest, Hermione!” said Ginny, and Harry was so amazed, so grateful, helooked up. “By the sound of it Malfoy was trying to use an Unforgivable Curse,you should be glad Harry had something good up his sleeve!”

/…/

“Oh,don’t start acting as though you understand Quidditch,” snapped Ginny, “you’llonly embarrass yourself.” (Rowling 2005,496)

Andthen she calmly accepts Harry’s decision to end things between them:

“Butyou’ve been too busy saving the wizarding world,” said Ginny, half-laughing.“Well … I can’t say I’m surprised. I knew this would happen in the end. I knewyou wouldn’t be happy unless you were hunting Voldemort. Maybe that’s why Ilike you so much.” (Rowling 2005, 603)

Beside Harry and Dumbledore she is also theonly character in the books who is not afraid to pronounce Voldemort’s namealoud.

Althoughnot all Heilman’s arguments are valid,[2]it is indisputably true that repeating one and the same negative stereotypeinfluences the readers, especially the young ones who are very susceptible to themessages their favourite books are relating. In The Half-Blood Prince Rowling made a step forward in regard to thisissue by showing how Ginny developed and by making McGonagall replaceDumbledore as Headmistress after his death.

Sexism and racism, however, are notthe only questionable issues in the series when interpreted with the dominantstrategy. As an example, John Kornfeld and Laurie Prothro claim that thepresentation of family and the relations between family members is also problematic,especially the presentation of families in the muggle world. They suggest thatby “relying on stereotypical family roles and relationships to give us a fewlaughs, Rowling risks reifying family roles and relationships in the minds ofher young readers, creating instead a troubling vision of home and family”(Kornfeld and Prothro 2003, 189).

Most family relations in the Harry Potter books are supposedlypresented as situation comedy, asconventional, superficial, and predictable relations that are far fromrepresentative of the diversity and complexity of a modern family. The familymembers are shown one-dimensionally; the parents are dull in comparison totheir smart, sharp children, boys are constantly breaking the rules, whichendangers the image of the family in the widersociety, both fathers (Weasley and Dursley) are bread-winners, the mothers takecare of the home and family (ibid., 189-90).

As a different example, Kornfeld andProthro state a different kind of family in the wizarding world where itsmembers are not relatives, instead, they are connected through friendship andtrust. These extended families are the individual houses at Hogwarts whichoffer shelter to their members. But even in this society there is rivalrypresent among the four families which is being stimulated even by the teachersand the Headmaster. In the Triwizard Tournament in The Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory are prepared tocooperate and they grab the Cup simultaneously. As a result, Cedric dies andthat evokes the disquieting notion that working together does not pay off (ibid.,196). Kornfeld and Prothro suggest that through thisRowling shows a plausible portrayal of how people live and work together. However,the competition between houses at Hogwarts leads to conflicts and alienationswhich is understood to be normal and ordinary by all characters.

Conclusion

Hall’s encoding/decoding model ofthree reading positions and all of the above examples illustrate the essence ofthe problem which, according to Ana Maria Machado, is the following: “Literature without ideology does not exist and thereforethe question of which literature is ideologically faultless is essentiallywrong. It is much more appropriate to ask: How we should read” (Machado 1995,101, my translation). It is therefore important that we teach children, wholack experience and education and are thus incapable of assuming theoppositional strategy of interpretation of texts, to read and interpretcritically. In this way we provide them with the basis on which they will laterbe capable of detecting questionable and faulty statements and notions in books(and everyday life) and they will be able to accept or refute them at their owndiscretion.

Bibliography

Chandler, D. 2001. Semioticsfor Beginners: Encoding/Decoding. http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem08c.html.(accessed January 2007).

Heilman, E. E. 2003a. Blue Wizards and Pink Witches. InHarry Potter's World,ed. E.. E. Heilman, 221-239. New York, London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Heilman, E. E. and A. E. Gregory. 2003b. Images of thePrivileged Insider and Outcast Outsider. In Harry Potter's World, ed. E.E. Heilman, 241-261. New York, London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Kornfeld,J. and L. Prothro. 2003. Comedy, Conflict, and Community: Home and Family in Harry Potter. In Harry Potter'sWorld, ed. E. E. Heilman, 187-202. New York,London:RoutledgeFalmer.

Machado,A. M. 1995. Ideologija in mladinska književnost. Trans: M. Kordigel. Otrok in knjiga. 22/39-40: 100-101.

Nel, P. 2001. HarryPotter Novels – A Readers' Guide. New York,London:Continuum.

Nikolajeva, M. 2003. Harry Potter - A Return to the RomanticHero. In Harry Potter's World, ed. E. E. Heilman, 125-141. New York, London:RoutledgeFalmer.

Rowling, J. K. 1998. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. London:Bloomsbury.

. 2000. Harry Potter and theGoblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury.

. 2005. HarryPotter and the Half-Blood Prince. London: Bloomsbury.

. 2002.Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix. London: Bloomsbury.

. 1997. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. London: Bloomsbury.

. 1999. Harry Potter and thePrisoner of Azkaban. London: Bloomsbury.

Stankovič,P. 2002. Kulturne študije: pregled zgodovine, teorij in metod. In Cooltura –uvod v kulturne študije, ed. A.Debeljak and P. Stankovič, 11-70. Ljubljana: Študentska založba.

Turner-Vorbeck,T. 2003. Pottermania: Good, Clean Fun or Cultural Hegemony? In HarryPotter's World, ed. E. E. Heilman, 13-24. New York,London:RoutledgeFalmer, 2003.

[1] This article has beenfinished before the publishing of the seventh book.

[2] This also results from the factthat the last three books were published after Heilman first published herarticle. The three books are essential for the understanding of Ginny Weasley'sdevelopment and the rise of other female characters to the positions of power.

This article was first published in ELOPE.

All Unquiet Things by Anna Jarzab

2010-12-02T20:29:00.000+01:00

All Unquiet Things by Anna Jarzab

Carly: She was sweet. Smart. Self-destructive. She knew the secrets of Brighton Day School’s most privileged students. Secrets that got her killed.

Neily: Dumped by Carly for a notorious bad boy, Neily didn’t answer the phone call she made before she died. If he had, maybe he could have helped her. Now he can’t get the image of her lifeless body out of his mind.

Audrey: She’s the reason Carly got tangled up with Brighton’s fast crowd in the first place, and now she regrets it—especially since she’s convinced the police have put the wrong person in jail. Audrey thinks the murderer is someone at Brighton, and she wants Neily to help her find out who it is.

As reluctant allies Neily and Audrey dig into their shared past with Carly, her involvement with Brighton’s dark goings-on comes to light. But figuring out how Carly and her killer fit into the twisted drama will force Audrey and Neily to face hard truths about themselves and the girl they couldn’t save.

All Unquiet Things is a very deftly written mystery that focuses on characters, but also has a tight and suspenseful plot. The story is alternately narrated by Neily and Audrey and this allows the readers to get to know both characters and through them also get a clear picture of Carly who died a year ago. I had a bit of difficulty switching between the narrators, but after a couple of pages, once I got into the voice of each narrator, it was fine. Although I felt that Neily was perhaps drawn a bit better than Audrey. The flashbacks were very interesting to read, not only because they explained what happened to Carly, but also because they juxtaposed the current Neily and Audrey and their past selves. What I really appreciate about this novel is that it, despite the mystery to be solved and the real murderer to be exposed, never puts plot before characters. It was a satisfying read with characters that remain with the readers long after they finish the book.

The Hating Game

2010-12-01T07:19:00.000+01:00

Help Talli Roland's debut novel THE HATING GAME hit the Kindle bestseller list at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk by spreading the word today. Even a few sales in a short period of time on Amazon helps push the book up the rankings, making it more visible to other readers.

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

No Kindle? Download a free app at Amazon for Mac, iPhone, PC, Android and more.

Coming soon in paperback. Keep up with the latest at www.talliroland.com

About THE HATING GAME:

When man-eater Mattie Johns agrees to star on a dating game show to save her ailing recruitment business, she's confident she'll sail through to the end without letting down the perma-guard she's perfected from years of her love 'em and leave 'em dating strategy. After all, what can go wrong with dating a few losers and hanging out long enough to pick up a juicy £200,000 prize? Plenty, Mattie discovers, when it's revealed that the contestants are four of her very unhappy exes. Can Mattie confront her past to get the prize money she so desperately needs, or will her exes finally wreak their long-awaited revenge? And what about the ambitious TV producer whose career depends on stopping her from making it to the end?

Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T17:44:00.000+01:00

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates it. Despite the fact that we don't have this holiday in Slovenia, there's a lot I'm grateful for and it would take more than a blog post to express my thanks. But one of the things that I really appreciate is the support and friendship of fellow writers that I've met online. I live far away from most of them, so blogging and other social networking is vital to keep in touch and despite the physical distance, a few lines in an e-mail or a comment on Facebook can mean a lot. So thanks, folks! :-)

One more thing I'm particularly grateful for at the moment is the Pushcart Prize nomination for my poem Soldier that was published in Autumn Sky Poetry. The poem was inspired by my research for another project for which I read many books on war and military. The most influential, without a doubt, was Generation Kill by Evan Wright. So thanks to Mr. Wright and to Christine for nominating my work.

November rain

2010-11-23T21:10:00.000+01:00

I knew it! Seeing how very few people actually experience it, I always thought it can't be a normal state. Now I have proof. What I'm talking about? About the fact that it has been proposed to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder. Here's the gist:

It is proposed that happiness be classified as a psychiatric disorder and be included in future editions of the major diagnostic manuals under the new name: major affective disorder, pleasant type. In a review of the relevant literature it is shown that happiness is statistically abnormal, consists of a discrete cluster of symptoms, is associated with a range of cognitive abnormalities, and probably reflects the abnormal functioning of the central nervous system. One possible objection to this proposal remains–that happiness is not negatively valued. However, this objection is dismissed as scientifically irrelevant. source

Well, happiness affects creativity too, in my opinion. I've always believed one has to be a bit sad or lost in order to be able to find inspiration and the drive to write. Just look at Goethe or Byron! Anyway, whether you're the next Byron or not, if you're doing an MFA, you might want to read this blog post on how it would be necessary to spice it up a bit with MBA in order for the future master novelists and poets to be able to actually get their works published.

If you like pulpy short fiction, check out this ezine. It features stories by Alvaro Rodriguez (Machete), Sam Reaves, Mark Wheaton, Scott Frank (Out of Sight, Minority Report) and other screenwriters and writers.

And if you haven't yet read/participated in the language blog festival, do so. You'll find many interesting essays, poems, and other art and writings that will unveil many mysteries, problems, wonders and anxieties hidden deeply in the pauses between words of a foreign language.

First lines II

2010-11-18T12:50:00.000+01:00

After a long time, here a few more first lines from the books I read recently.

YA:

"It's tough, living in the shadow of a dead girl." (Tell Me a Secret by Holly Cupala)

"It was the end of summer, when the hills were bone dry and brown; the sun beating down and shimmering up off the pavement was enough to give you heatstroke." (All Unquiet Things by Anna Jarzab)

"At night I listen while some of the kids whisper their stories, from before." (The Secret Under My Skin by Janet McNaughton)

"I felt her fear before I heard her screams." (Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead)

Fiction:

"In the dessert, deep inside the spiny center of the cactus, nests a bird no bigger than my finger." (The Flower in the Skull by Kathleen Alcalá)

"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since." (The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Nonfiction:

"Flying into Australia, I realized with a sigh that II had forgotten again who their prime minister is." (In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson)

"For a long time I have hesitated to write a book on woman." (The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir)

"At last, after a long silence, women took to the streets." (The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf)

Which is your favourite? Mine is the one by Alcalá, and the 'explosive' beginning of Vampire Academy. Feel free to share the first lines of your favourite books.

he loves me, he loves me not

2010-11-17T12:33:00.000+01:00

Someone sent me a link to this post about the unwritten love poem this morning and it got me thinking about the ways we express our emotions and appreciation for the people in our lives. How do we do it? Every day or just on special occasions? With words or deeds? Easily or with reluctance and difficulty?

Me, I try to do it every day, but I express it far more easily with - surprisingly! - deeds than words. I've always had difficulty telling others what I felt. That is part of who I am by nature, but I was also raised to be ... well, reserved (I'd fit right in with the most uptight English upper-middle class families). Not being able to tell your crush how you feel about them can make your life in high school hell. And when you try to channel your desperate, unrequited love into kind deeds, like allowing your crush to copy your homework, lending them your books, listening to them gripe about their annoying parents and so on, at that age, no one will even notice it, much less appreciate it.

But even later, mature and grown people keep expecting to hear the 'I love you' on a daily basis, regardless of whether it's done with feeling or just in passing, more like a quick 'bye, see ya'. We keep hearing it in movies, TV, read about characters in books who have no problem saying 'I love you' thirty pages after they first met. Those three words are quite possibly the most often exploited expression in the history of the human kind. We say them to bribe parents to get money or the permission for a late night out, partners to get them to do house chores, potential lovers to get them to have sex with us. But do we ever really mean them?

If I had to choose between a man who'd tell me every morning that he loves me and one who would instead come home early to have a glass of wine and nice dinner with me ... Well, I let's just say I wouldn't have any difficulty in deciding who to pick (If he later told me loved me I wouldn't hold it against him, though.). Perhaps I'm wrong, deluded or just sadly unromantic, but I believe that what we do tells far more about how we feel than what we say. And I'm saying this perfectly aware of the power of words. I just think that most often people feel obliged to constantly repeat certain phrases because that's what's right, proper, expected etc. And the true meaning of such words becomes watered down through constant abuse, until they become only perfunctory expressions, such as greetings.

So maybe the unwritten love poem does indeed say more than all the written ones, it's just a shame few people are aware of its (non)existence and true meaning.

p.s. Needless to say, I still didn't tell my high school crush about how I felt about him. Maybe I'll do it one of these days.

Language > Place (Blog Carnival)

2010-10-24T21:21:00.000+02:00

Dorothee, the editor of BluePrintReview, invited me to participate in a blog carnival with a focus on writing in a foreign language. The blog carnival sounded exciting as I've never participated in one, so I wanted to try. Here is my first post on the topic of Language > Place. You're welcome to join the carnival and spin the merry-go-round in whichever country you live in and whichever language you speak.

Favorite Word

(first published in The Foundling Review)

If you ever took the time to ask

me what my favorite word is, I’d say

it’s a word you don’t understand

because it’s in a language foreign

to you, more and more often

foreign to me. I’d say

I sometimes doubt its meaning

when it only seems tangible

on paper and the lips of strangers.

I’d say it expresses everything

I crave for and hides just

as much. I’d tell you

the word, slowly, tasting it,

rolling it over my unaccustomed

tongue, pursing my lips

just enough to make it seem like

the effort that it isn’t.

I’d say ljubezen. Amore. Liebe. Love.

And you wouldn’t understand

and I wouldn’t know

how to translate.

My decision to write in English rather than my mother tongue, Slovenian, was more of a gradual development than a conscious decision. I studied English at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. During my post-graduate study I wrote several articles on English literature which were published in the department’s literary journal. Poems and short stories followed soon afterwards when I discovered several (foreign) literary e-zines.

In the above poem, I tried to capture the effect that speaking and writing in a foreign language has on me and my perception of my mother tongue despite the fact that I still live in my homeland. I often wonder whether I’m betraying my mother tongue and culture by turning to another language. Or am I betraying the ‘adopted’ language by writing in it because “such writing makes the (…) language a stranger to itself.” (Saadi) There is no one answer to these questions; depending on the position of the viewer I am either betraying my mother tongue and polluting English with foreign concepts, or, on the other hand, enriching both languages and cultures with new, original views.

Either way, the process runs both ways – while I change, add or subtract from either or both languages, the two languages and cultures in turn change me, and this invariably affects my perception and hence expression. “When one writes within (…) the space between languages (…) one always has the possibility of extending the field of memory of the language in which one writes, while the other language, the absent language, is involved as an impulse-giving language, as the imprint language.” (Meddeb)

While the poem, Favorite Word, expresses a somewhat negative view of my position as a writer writing in an ‘adopted’ language, this should be understood as only one of the elements in a complex conglomerate of arguments pro et contra.

Kinetic Typography

2010-10-19T14:42:00.000+02:00

Fantastic video by Stephen Fry on the love of language:

Click here.

Wordles

2010-09-18T09:13:00.001+02:00

I like to play with wordle. Here are two, the first made from my latest poetry submission, the second from a new short story. I think I need to cut on the similes. ;)

More publications

2010-09-05T10:22:00.000+02:00

A list of recent publications:

Short story 'Violet tulips' in Frostwriting
Elsie is in a wheel chair. Clive wants to show her that that doesn't mean she can't have a life. But she doubts it ...

Poem 'Breasts' in Negative Suck

Poem 'You puzzle me' in Negative Suck

Poem 'Stripped' in PoetSpeak (audio)

Poem 'Soldier' in Autumn Sky Poetry

Poem 'Out of Tune' in Rose & Thorn journal

'Wasteland' is coming soon in The Foundling Review

WriteOnCon

2010-08-12T09:43:00.001+02:00

I spent the past two days online. Not that I'm otherwise very far from my computer, but I'm rarely this focused when I'm surfing the net. The reason for staying up late and for having blurry vision after 12 hours of staring at the screen is the very first online writers' conference WriteOnCon.

The project was started by a group of YA writers: Jamie Harrington, Elana Johnson, Casey McCormick, Shannon Messenger, Lisa and Laura Roecker, and Jennifer Stayrook. The tree-day conference is completely free and it's available to everyone online. Despite technical issues the first day (which were solved by posting the vlogs and posts on the private blogs of the organizer, and later resolved so that the main page functions again), the conference is a success.

The authors, editors, and agents who agreed to participate and offer advice and support to new and inexperienced YA writers include such stars as Holly Root, Elana Roth, Joanna Stampfel-Volpe, Kate Schafer Testerman, Mary Kole, Jennifer Laughran, Josh Berk, Rachel Hawkins, Cynthea Liu, Jodi Meadows, Janette Rallison, Alice and Martin Provensen, Lauren Becker and many many more.

The schedule is simple and effective: each hour (from 6 a.m. EDT till 10:30 p.m.) there's one post, vlog or live chat, live blogging, or live workshop posted on the main website. Some offer advice, some live interaction with the 'attendees'. There's nothing like experiencing first-hand and real-time how an agent interprets a query within minutes as they receive it. A live chat with Natalie Fischer gave us an insight into that. When you write a query it sounds so perfect and flawless, but when Natalie pointed out the defects and weaknesses you suddenly see how right she was.

Jennifer Laughran stayed half an hour longer for her live chat to answer more questions that literally (or is it literary?) come in from around the world. It's all done in a very relaxed and fun way (Pie in the face method by Rosemary Clement-Moore and her poor brother, anyone?).

The best thing about this conference is that I can attend it from Europe without having to spend hundreds of dollars on flight tickets and hotel rooms and appearing at the events all crazy-eyed and ruffled from the jet lag. It's a fantastic opportunity for me to experience my first writers' conference in a comfortable, non-stress-inducing way. The attendees can relax and ask the agents and other authors questions that they perhaps wouldn't dare ask in person (not because the questions would be provocative but because they might not even dare approach an agent in person).

Although the advice offered by the publishing professionals is perhaps nothing new or innovative (after all, they all have websites where they list their guidelines, suggestions, advice etc.), the greatest thing about this conference is that it gives a definite feeling of what a giving community YA writers, agent and editors are. Everyone is welcoming and willing to share their knowledge and insights into a tough but rewarding business. And the fact that it's for free and available online makes this conference pure awesomeness.

Congrats to the organizers, the agents, editors, and authors for this fantastic idea and great execution. And thanks for their devotion and generosity. It's much appreciated. Let's hope for another such conference soon. Hopefully, others will take the hint and organize a conference on another genre. If books are making a transition from paper to the web, it's only appropriate that the conferences do too.

Now, I'm off to check on the events I missed during the night. See you at WriteOnCon!

Glimpses of the weekend

2010-08-09T15:08:00.000+02:00

2010-08-03T09:17:00.000+02:00

The publishing house I work for published a cute little story about Rose the Giraffe. The artwork charmed me completely.

Monkeys convince Rose the Giraffe that she needs a makeover. They cover her brown spots with flowers. Suddenly, Rose feels special. But is this what she really wants?

The picture book is available in English, Italian, Slovenian, Croatian, and German. It was written and illustrated by Tina Perko. The art is really beautiful. The picture book is also great for learning new languages.

If you're interested in buying it, you can contact me and I'll give you the details.

My fave spots

2010-07-21T22:34:00.000+02:00

In the past few years I've been to quite a few places, including places at the other side of the world. I love travelling, there's something very appealing in immersing yourself into foreign cultures and places, getting away from your usual environment, perhaps even out of your comfort zone. And while I love nature, it's the cities that I usually pay the most attention to when planning a trip and during the actual trip. The vivacity, uniqueness, intertwined life stories and solitariness of these crowded spaces is what appeals to me most. And in the cities, it's usually the eateries that manage to charm me into falling in love with them. I'm not a particularly good cook, but I love food in all its forms and tastes.

So here are a few favourite spots of mine from around the world. The only thing they have in common is food and drinks.

I'll start with the latest addition to the list - Cafe Sydney. You can find it at 31 Alfred Street, Circular Quay, Sydney.

The food in Cafe Sydney is fantastic and they offer a wide selection of the best wines. And quite frankly, with the view the restaurant offers of Harbour Bridge, I'd want to go there even if the food sucked. Unfortunately, we were too late to book a table for New Year's Eve because it would've been great to see the fireworks from here. And also super expensive.

If you ever happen to pass through the quaint town of L'Isle sur la Sorgue or maybe even set it as your final destination, make sure to check out the various restaurants in the old part of the town that is situated on the island the place is named after. The offer is very diverse in regards to the food and prices. My favourite spot, though, was an ice-cream place right by the river on Esplanade Robert Vasse. It was called Isabella Gelateria and they had the best gelato artigianale. During the weekends and in the evenings it's pretty packed, but that just a sign that the ice-cream truly is great.

If you want to try something different (and I mean different) and you're anywhere close to Sicily, go to Castelmola, a picturesque village in the Catania region. There you'll find Bar Turrisi, a bar that is entirely dedicated to penises. Yup, you read that right. Even the taps in the restrooms are in the form of a certain part of male anatomy.

You must try vino alla mandorla or almond wine. It's very sweet and very very good.

If I return to the continent Down Under, there's a lovely French restaurant in Melbourne that will give your taste buds a real fest. Let me introduce you to Bistro Guillaume. It used to be situated on Whiteman Street, but it's now relocating to Crown Entertainment complex so it's temporarily closed. Everything in Bistro Guillaume is delicious, including the cute accent of the French waiter.

If you need a quick bite while out and about in New York, Bryant Park Cafe is the place. Perhaps you'll have to wait for a few minutes for a free table (they don't take bookings) or you can eat at the bar, but it's a nice place out in the open and the food is good. The atmosphere is relaxed, although it can get a bit hectic if there's a large crowd. But they make a mean Cobb salad.

Next time, some more fave spots. If you know of a great place to eat, or just a spot you love to visit, share it with me, I'd love to see it.

Summer poems

2010-07-16T22:46:00.001+02:00

from my garden

Here are the first publications of this summer.

First, my poem Out of Tune in Rose & Thorn Journal. There are some other great poems in this issue, plus I love their cover art.

And fresh out of the oven, the latest issue of Autumn Sky Poetry (featuring another lovely photo on the main page), with my poem Soldier. Don't get confused by the two different last names, I submitted to one magazine a lot sooner than to the other, hence the use of my old name. Anyway, Soldier was inspired by Generation Kill, Kri v puščavskem pesku, and other books on war and warfare that I read lately for my research. Unfortunately, the piece that I did the research for is still not finished (I'm a professional procrastinator), but at least I got a poem out of it. :-)

Autumn Sky Poetry, in one of its older issues, published one of my favourite poems, Whispers from the Pier by Patrick Carrington. I love these lines:

Beyond the dunes there is a place

where jetty poles are snapped

and mark a death, graveyard on sand.

And also:

We were there

once, beneath the choking wood, dying

with the pier in shadows.

Beautiful. You should go read the whole poem. I seem to have a thing for beaches and piers ...

In August, Frostwriting will publish my short story Violet Tulips. And in September, Negative Suck will publish Breasts and You Puzzle Me. Check back then for fresh link to some fresh poetry and stories.

Later this month, my review of Jim Beaver's Life's That Way will appear in All Things Girl.

I also submitted my first short play. We'll see how that goes ...

Enjoy the hot summer while it lasts, lovelies.
xox

The Sky is Everywhere

2010-07-01T09:33:00.000+02:00

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
Published: 9th March 2010

Seventeen-year-old Lennie Walker, bookworm and band geek, plays second clarinet and spends her time tucked safely and happily in the shadow of her fiery older sister, Bailey. But when Bailey dies abruptly, Lennie is catapulted to center stage of her own life—and, despite her nonexistent history with boys, suddenly finds herself struggling to balance two. Toby was Bailey’s boyfriend; his grief mirrors Lennie’s own. Joe is the new boy in town, a transplant from Paris whose nearly magical grin is matched only by his musical talent. For Lennie, they’re the sun and the moon; one boy takes her out of her sorrow, the other comforts her in it. But just like their celestial counterparts, they can’t collide without the whole wide world exploding.

This book surprised me by its fresh approach, innovative metaphors and a good plot. The characters, too, were quirky and fun, a bit crazy at times, occasionally sad but always lovable.

The story doesn't shy away from the darker issues. Lennie and Toby's relationship may seem wrong at first sight, but the motivation behind it makes perfect sense. So does the shame that prevents Lennie from telling Joe the truth which later leads to a lot of heartbreak.

A few gems from the book:
She looks up at me in the window, waves like a windmill in a hurricane. (p 45)

He can't stop smiling at his brothers, who are pounding their guitars into notes so ferocious they probably could overthrow the government. (p 98)

Our tongues have fallen madly in love and gotten married and moved to Paris. (p 125)

"Well, if sometime, not now, but sometime, you might not want to be one anymore, and I could be your first, that's where the cool part comes in, you know, for me." (p 164)

And then he smiles, and in all the places around the globe where it's night, day breaks. (p 267)

Sportsmanship

2010-06-23T08:16:00.000+02:00

Everyone is going crazy with the World Cup in progress. I am too, I admit. I've watched most of the games so far.

But while some say the Brazilians have god-like skills on the filed, or that Christiano Ronaldo's moves are like poetry, for me the real winners are the New Zealanders, North Koreans and other such small teams. They are the ones who aren't blinded by the glint of Christiano Ronaldo's hair or cowed by the brilliance of Maicon or Camoranesi, unlike our commentators.

I stopped watching the game between Brazil and Ivory Coast half way through because the commentator was so shamelessly rooting for Brazil. Could you please be a little more impartial? Yes, the Brazilians and Argentinians are incredible on the field, I'm not saying they aren't, some of them can score goals while they're simultaneously dancing ballet. But please consider other factors too. Like the fact that these small teams don't have much if any experience with big tournaments (i.e. North Korea). Or that some New Zealand footballers earn less per year than C. Ronaldo earns per week. Or that some teams are only half-professional with students and regularly employed men in their midst.

How many team captains can brag with a college degree? Ryan Nelsen, NZ's captain, has a degree in political science and his team managed to kick the Italians' collective ass and end the game in a draw on Sunday. Eat that, Cannavaro!

We seem to be forgetting what sport is all about. We've turned it into an industry that surpasses many other industries, not just in the turnover but also in its redundancy or uselessness. Don't get me wrong, I love football and other sports. But can we still call them sports? Besides, in light of the current global financial situation I find it ridiculous that we pay a football player €250.000 per week to kick around a ball. With that money five families could live a comfortable, decent life for a year.

Moreover, where is the sportsmanship? The fair play? During the match between Portugal and North Korea, the Portuguese committed 18 fouls, the Koreans only 3. Moreover, the Koreans, every time they committed a foul, apologized to the player from the opposite team. How many examples of, say, the Italians apologizing can you come up with? Any? No? You have 10 more seconds ... Still nothing? Yeah, I guess their angry gesticulating and complaining to the referee is a bit distracting. Not to mention that when the Italians play, they should hand out the Oscars instead of yellow and red cards.

I'm sure Brazil or Argentina will win the cup. And I'm sure they'll deserve it because they are better. But for me, the real winners are the New Zealanders, North Koreans, Slovenians and other 'outsiders'.

First day of summer :(

2010-06-21T10:09:00.000+02:00

New thriller in theaters near you ...

On the morning of its much anticipated birthday, Summer vanished without a trace. Even H from CSI Miami couldn't find its whereabouts (or any reason to keep wearing his sunglasses). Was it kidnapped by the jealous Autumn? Or was it just fed up with us constantly bitching about how it's too intense, too weepy, or not warm enough? Will we ever see it again? Or will the sky forever cry over the loss of the warm and agreeable Summer?

A mystery with subtle hints of the global warming problems from the creators of such blockbusters as the Ice Age! It'll leave you shivering!

FIRST DAY OF SUMMER opens 21^st June

New pubs

2010-06-15T11:08:00.003+02:00

New publications of my work are coming up.

First, my poem Toxic Touch was published by http://poetsforlivingwaters.com/ , a "poetry action in response to the BP Gulf oil disaster of April 20, 2010, one of the most profound man-made ecological catastrophes in history." The poetry collected on this site is trying to express our love of nature and condemn the negligent practices of people who do not realize that nature doesn't need us, but we need nature.

You can read my poem on their website. Go to Open Mic (N-R) in the navigation bar. My poem is currently the fourth one down (that changes as they add poems daily).

Another one of my poems will appear in the summer issue of Rose & Thorn Journal. They have previously published my poem Twenty Shoes.

Also, related to one of my past posts about Generation Kill by Evan Wright, here is an article on non-fiction vs. fiction accounts of the recent wars, The Human Heart of the Matter. The author, Geoff Dyer, claims that with the well-written non-fiction accounts that we've had the opportunity to read in the recent years, fiction doesn't stand a chance to recreate that same authenticity. I'm not yet sure whether I agree or not.

I am currently working on a script for my Script Writing unit at Swinburne. I'm nearly done. I have to say it's exhilarating the way the story is unfolding much more quickly than when writing fiction. It helps so much having the help of the visuals and sounds. I'm really enjoying this subject. Maybe I should've gone into film-making business. ;)

Links

2010-06-07T18:18:00.000+02:00

I'd like to share two interesting links today ...

First, this article made me snicker and giggle like a crazy person. Why is True Blood better than Twilight? Matt Fowler comes up with many good arguments and he does it in a hilarious way. The article also mentions some of the issues I touched in this piece on the female characters in Twilight and The Vampire Diaries. Sookie and Elena are pretty similar in certain respects.

It's only one more week till the premiere of the 3rd season of True Blood. Eclipse comes out on 30th June.

The second article is a fantastic peek behind the scenes - six TV writers reveal what the writers room is like, how they create the amazing stories that we love to watch and what works in the writers room and what doesn't.

The roundtable included Deric A. Hughes (Warehouse 13); Zack Stentz (Fringe, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles); Amy Berg (Eureka, The 4400); Jane Espenson (Caprica, Battlestar Galactica, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), John Rogers (Leverage, The Jackie Chan Adventures), and Javier Grillo-Marxuach (The Middleman, Lost).

Brothers in Arms

2010-06-02T20:38:00.001+02:00

What do film making and war conflicts have in common? And how do filming techniques reflect the type of warfare the characters in war series employ in their fighting? The comparison of two war series, Generation Kill (Operation Iraqi Freedom) and Band of Brothers (World War II).

In the past two weeks I’ve watched two mini series on two wars, Generation Kill, taking place in Iraq in 2003, and Band of Brothers, recounting the story of the invasion of Normandy and the subsequent events in WWII. Both series were originally shown on HBO, the first in 2008, the latter in 2001. Both TV shows were based on books, Generation Kill was written by the Rolling Stone journalist Evan Wright, Band of Brothers by an American historian Stephen Ambrose.

Both series are very well filmed, the cast is outstanding. However, the differences between the two shows are not just in the story and the time they portray, there are certain dissimilarities in the way the shows were filmed and how they tell the story.

Both shows have a big cast. There are 32 characters in Band of Brothers that appear in more than half of the episodes, there are dozens more that appear in two or three episodes. There are even more characters in Generation Kill that appear in all the episodes, but there’s about ten to twelve characters that have the majority of screen time. The cameras mostly follow Team One, a group of five men crammed into a Humvee that usually spearheads all the missions. The author of the book, Evan Wright, was embedded with this team that was under the command of Sergeant Brad Colbert. All the ‘interior’ shots come from this Humvee, we rarely get a glimpse at the other vehicles, and the other characters only join in when there are outside or battle scenes. This sets a surprisingly intimate atmosphere for the show.

We rarely get a similar mood in Band of Brothers. This show focuses on a larger number of soldiers and their COs, so much so that it is occasionally (especially when watching for the first time) difficult to follow and remember all the faces and names. This emphasizes the vast operations, the enormity of the battles and the war itself. It spreads a huge canvas to paint the stories of hundreds of thousands of soldiers that fought, died or survived WWII. This reflects the different types of warfare that were characteristic of these two battalions. The battles the Easy Company fought were large-scale, days or even weeks long fights. Missions that are more characteristic of 1st Recon Battalion of US Marines usually require the involvement of smaller teams of men. From this perspective, the more intimate atmosphere of GK, created by shots made with hand-held 16 mm cameras from the inside of a crammed Humvee, as opposed to BoB is very appropriate.

Generation Kill distinguishes itself with short, quick scenes and sequences. This sets a fast pace that imitates the quick progression of the 1st Recon Battalion from starting their trip into Iraq to the end when they reach Baghdad, all within a few weeks. Of course, the war is far from over, but the storyline of GK only spans over this period. BoB starts with Easy Company training in Georgia, the landing in Normandy, the Battle of Bastogne and all through to the end of the war. Obviously, the time span is considerably longer, although the series only has three episodes more than GK. But the pace is suitable. Longer scenes, ‘mood’ shots, even voiceover narration, slow-mo, and cross-dissolve transitions from shot to shot all add to the feeling of prolonged battles and expeditions. Even the conversations between the characters seem to be longer, less chopped and with far fewer slang words that abound in GK where there can be long minutes with no more conversation that the yelled orders of the ‘Oscar Mike’ type.

Despite all the Marine lingo in GK that could create a distance between the viewer and the story and/or between individual characters in the series, this is not the case. The previously mentioned skillfully done scenes in the Humvee make sure that we get the impression of the tightly-knit groups that these Marines form. I don’t have the slightest idea of what being a Marine is like or what that entails, but Generation Kill not only managed to bring that closer to me as a viewer, it also did it in a way that still maintained its authenticity. Perhaps, this was also the result of Susanna White’s idea of a good film: “We (Susanna and David Simon) both don't like seeing the acting in any work that we do; we both believe in naturalistic performances.” To add to the authenticity of the show, they included real Marines into the cast, i.e. Eric Kocher and Rudy Reyes.

Similarly, each episode of Band of Brothers has an introduction sequence where actual soldiers who fought in WWII shared their views of the various aspects of the war. Together with the amazing cinematography, make-up and costumes, the series is probably as authentic as it can get, seeing how it was filmed five decades after the war. The techniques used in the filming of these two series reflect not just the essential characteristics of the storylines, but also the type of warfare employed by the two Battalions. This results in authentic and believable storytelling, but also in the best imitation of real life that filmmaking can offer. Both series are worth watching. And re-watching several times.

First lines I

2010-05-22T23:34:00.000+02:00

Do you ever pay any special attention to the first lines of the books you read? I don't. Or didn't. But ask any literary agent or editor and they'll tell you it only takes a few sentences for them to decide whether they like the manuscript or not. Some books really do have outstanding first lines. Some, not so much. I decided to pay more attention to this particular aspect of the books I read. Here are a few I read lately.

"Each of us has a private Austen." (The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler)

"The most beautiful corpse I've ever seen was sitting behind my desk." (The Killing Dance by Laurell K. Hamilton)

"It was St. Patrick's Day, and the only green I was wearing was a button that read, "Pinch me and you're dead meat"." (Bloody Bones by Laurell K. Hamilton)

"Il sole del tardo pomeriggio bagnava i tetti del picolo borgo di Kilmore Cove con una calda luce dorata." --The sun of the late afternoon bathed the roofs of the small village of Kilmore Cove with a warm, golden light. (Il Labirinto D'Ombra by Pierdomenico Baccalario)

Of these four, I have to say I find the most memorable the one about the corpse from Hamilton's book. She has a way of starting her books with memorable sentences. If you read the books in the Anita Blake series in the order they were written, then you already know what (or who) she's referring to with 'the most beautiful corpse', but it's still a shocker as far as first sentences go.

In the other example, Hamilton goes for humour and a nice bit of characterization. It's just like Anita Blake to threaten people with death if they dare come close to her, much less pinch her.

The Italian book is a middle grade novel, hence the somewhat subdued beginning. Also, this is the ninth (??) book in a series and obviously the first sentence of the ninth book won't drive you away if the previous eight whole books haven't.

The one by Fowler probably seems the least intriguing, but of course mentioning Austen's name is quite enough to draw the readers in. Btw, have any of you read it? Have you seen the film? Which did you prefer?

Female characters in The Vampire Diaries vs. Twilight

2010-05-17T09:01:00.002+02:00

I’m writing an article on the presentation of female characters in young adult literature for a literary journal. While doing research for that it occurred to me that we keep hearing comparisons between the Twilight series and The Vampire Diaries and while I adore Damon and Stefan and all the other boys on the show, it’s the women on TVD that are the really compelling characters. So I wanted to do a short comparison between the women of Twilight and the women of TVD, but instead of comparing the books, I compared the first season of TVD and the first two movies in the Twilight series. So here’s a quick analysis. (I didn’t include Katherine Pierce because what we know of her so far is only what the other characters told us about her, we only got to see the actual Katherine in two scenes. I also didn't include Pearl and Anna.)

Female characters in The Vampire Diaries vs. Twilight

There are quite a few female characters in The Vampire Diaries and there are a few in the Twilight series. We have several parental figures, such as Jenna, Renee, Esme, Sheila; then there are the protagonists’ friends: Jessica, Angela, Alice, Bonnie, Caroline; and the protagonists themselves: Elena Gilbert and Bella Swan.

Mother figures in Twilight are more or less absent or play only minor, barely noticeable roles. The first one that must be mentioned is Bella’s mother, Renee, who is described as erratic and only appears in a few scenes in the film. She is practically unable to live on her own. Until she meets Phil, who later becomes her husband, she needs Bella to be her ‘guide’ and to help her with everyday jobs that she seems unable to do by herself. Once Phil steps into the picture, Bella has to leave her familiar life in Phoenix and move to her Dad’s place because if she stayed, she knows her mother would want to stay with her instead of follow her new husband to Florida. So it’s Bella who has to make the sacrifice instead of her mother.

The other mother figure in the film is Esme Cullen, who is pretty and kind but nothing much more than that. She has only a few lines in Twilight. While her husband is a respectable doctor, she doesn’t seem to do anything at all. She also doesn’t have any kind of authority in her family. When Bella comes to visit and Rosalie gets upset and shatters the salad bowl, Esme orders her to clean it up, but we never see Rosalie actually do it. Also, when Robert starts hunting Bella, it’s Edward who tells Esme to put on Bella’s coat to leave her scent and lead Robert away from Bella’s true destination; Esme has no say in it.

The women of Mystic Falls are more diverse, they have various roles, some more important, some less. When we think of strong female characters, the first one that comes to mind is Liz Forbes. She holds a powerful position as the sheriff of Mystic Falls, she is the ultimate authority that is further emphasized by her being part of the secret council that was set up in order to protect the townsfolk. We often see sheriff Forbes interact with men, be them her subordinates or not. She doesn’t have a problem giving orders to her deputies. She stands up to John Gilbert and Mayor Lockwood in Founder’s Day (1.22) because she believes having Mystic Falls as bait is too dangerous. John can only overpower her physically by knocking her unconscious.

We did see her in situations where she needed help as in the scene where she and her deputies try to take down Lexie (162 Candles, 1.8). Sheriff Forbes is ultimately saved by a man – Damon, but the nature of the situation makes it clear that she didn’t require help because she was a woman, rather, it was her inexperience with vampires that endangered her. This conclusion can be corroborated by the fact that there are several men that get killed while fighting vampires (i.e. Logan Fell), and by the fact that we, as viewers, know that Damon was able to defeat Lexie because he is himself a vampire.

A more problematic characteristic of Elizabeth Forbes is her tense relationship with her daughter, Caroline. Caroline’s refusal to talk to her mom, to let her close and establish a true mother-daughter relationship with her, might suggest that a woman in a position of authority can’t at the same time also be a good mother or even a woman (When Liz wants to talk to Caroline about boyfriends, Caroline replies that if she wanted to talk boys, she would’ve talked to her father who is successfully dating one). However, we haven’t seen much of the backstory behind Liz and Caroline’s feud in this season, so there may be something in their past that would explain their relationship differently. Maybe we’ll see more of it next season.

Another important female character is Jenna, Jeremy and Elena’s reluctant guardian. When we first meet her, we see her stumble as a mother figure, Mr. Tanner accuses her directly of being incapable as a guardian, and even her age doesn’t inspire confidence in her as an authority figure. All that could be a major character flaw, but due to the way Jenna came to be in the current situation – she suddenly became the sole guardian of two teenagers after their parents’ death – Jenna’s portrayal is very realistic and optimistic. She is in her twenties, she had her life away from Mystic Falls, away from ex jerk boyfriends, when all of a sudden she had to leave all that and take up the role of a responsible and assertive adult, a role she wasn’t planning on assuming in a while yet, if ever.

Her mostly failed attempts (at least in the beginning) at being a figure of authority, a mother-like presence in the lives of Jeremy and Elena, don’t show her as a weak or failed character. Instead, her willingness to try and do her best, to renounce her own life in order to help her nephew and niece overcome their bereavement and go on with life, that sense of responsibility shows her as mature enough and strong enough not to give up and buckle under the pressure of this completely new and demanding life that was thrust upon her.

Towards the end of the season we got to see Elena’s real mother, Isobel. She had Elena when she was a teenager and she left the child with the family of the child’s father, John Gilbert. Later, she was turned into a vampire, and as we meet her, she severely lacks any kind of feelings not just motherly instincts. She is cold and detached, as her husband describes her, but she is powerful and evil; she even dares challenge Damon who is older and therefore stronger than her. While we get to see her capable of killing Jeremy to get what she wants; the final image of Isobel is her ordering John to get rid of Stefan and Damon so that their daughter would never become part of the vampire world. “She’s our daughter, John. We owe that to her.” (Isobel, 1.21) Although she is far from a good mother example, that being her parting line, we are left with the image of a protective mother despite her earlier evil, remorseless acts.

A character we cannot leave out when discussing well-portrayed, strong females, is Bonnie’s grandmother. Sheila Bennett was possibly the most self-assured character in the whole first season, bar Katherine Pierce. Part of this sureness can be ascribed to her age, but part of it is simply who she is. She doesn’t pretend, not even for the sake of her son and her granddaughter who initially both think she is crazy. Sheila is not only a powerful witch, but also a strong woman. She’s level-headed and fair. When Stefan comes to ask for her help, she gives him the benefit of doubt because she feels that despite him being a vampire he is not inherently evil. But when Damon shows up at her door, she instantly recognizes the enemy in him and she very elegantly lets him know she is not to be played with. Her personality, particularly as played by Jasmine Guy, exudes strength, self-assuredness and self-knowledge.

When Bonnie realized Grams was far from crazy as she initially believed, Sheila’s example leads her in the right direction. Sheila doesn’t tell Bonnie what to do, she leaves the decision to Bonnie, trusting her to decide right. I believe nothing could’ve given Bonnie more strength to embrace what she was than Sheila’s display of her trust in Bonnie and her own comfortable acceptance of herself. At the beginning, we see Bonnie confused and occasionally frightened by her own abilities. But as soon as she accepts them as part of her personality, she gains the same feeling of sureness as Sheila emanates. Yes, Bonnie knows that she has a lot to learn, she knows her newly discovered abilities could endanger her and could also cause her to become an outcast, but she nonetheless doesn’t shy away from who she really is. Grams’ death after they helped Damon and Stefan open the tomb was a major event in Bonnie’s growing up – she finally realized who she was, she knows herself well, and she’s holding her ground.

When Elena asks her to destroy the weapon against vampires, that goes against Bonnie’s beliefs so she doesn’t do it. It felt slightly out of character when she lied about it, but I suspect that was needed as a major plot device and it was done at the expense of Bonnie’s character. However, we get another glimpse at Sheila’s influence on Bonnie when Damon thanks her sincerely for doing what she did. Bonnie sees that perhaps Damon isn’t entirely evil and when he finds himself captured in a burning basement, she decides to help Stefan save him. The power she demonstrates in this scene is awe-inspiring, and so is her determination to destroy Damon (and Stefan if need be) if he spills just a drop of innocent blood. As she says, “I know who I am now.” (Founder’s Day, 1.22) She does indeed, and she’s not afraid to show it.

In the second half of the season, Caroline Forbes was unfortunately pushed to the background, but she has still held her own. Yes, she is shallow and occasionally severely lacks tact and sensitivity, but she is well aware of that, she has a heart of gold, and she is surprisingly perceptive of what goes on around her.

Caroline is the only one of the three friends who falls into Damon’s clutches, which perhaps makes her look weak and helpless. She is compelled and left at the mercy of Damon’s whims; he uses (and abuses) her emotionally and physically. She often feels inferior to Elena, as was demonstrated at the Miss Mystic Falls pageant. She confides in Bonnie how she wishes to win, but knows she can’t compete against Elena because she will have the sympathy of the judges due to the loss of both of her parents. Despite knowing that she doesn’t stand a chance at winning if Elena competes, when Elena wants to quit, it is Caroline who tells her to suck it up and go through with it because she has to do it for her mother.

Caroline may seem fragile, defenseless, and superficial, but she is also spunky, positive, kind-hearted and supportive. Her relationships with others are never easy because of who she is. She’s at odds with her mother, she envies Elena, she feels left out when Bonnie doesn’t confide in her, she feels ignored when it’s Elena’s embrace that Matt craves when his sister is found dead. Yet, she doesn’t give up, she tries again and again to fix things, to be better, to do the right thing. The fact that she is constantly torn and that she struggles daily to come to terms with herself and the people surrounding her, makes her a wonderfully engaging character.

Unlike Caroline and Bonnie in The Vampire Diaries, Bella’s friends in Twilight are barely noticeable. Jessica is presented as a love-struck fool who pines after Mike, but at least Angela shows some spirit when she asks Eric to the prom instead of waiting for him to do it. However, in New Moon both girls more or less disappear, Bella’s focus is all on the absent Edward and Jacob.

The Cullen sisters, too, only have minor parts in the movies. In Twilight, Rosalie is the only one who shows some character and refuses to accept Bella into the family. In New Moon, it’s Alice who comes to the rescue, but more than anything else, her involvement is just a device to drive the plot on. Understandably, it is difficult to translate the hundreds of pages of the novels into a two-hour movie, nevertheless, the characterization of the Cullen girls feels decidedly one-dimensional and flat. With Rosalie gaining a more prominent role in the fourth installment of the saga, her character might develop in the last two movies in the series.

And so we come to the two protagonists, Bella from Twilight and Elena from The Vampire Diaries. Bella Swan shows some disturbing characteristics the way she is portrayed. She’s showing signs of unhealthy obsession, she is suicidal, and even has hallucinations. But let’s start from the beginning. She is first introduced as a shy, introvert, klutzy girl who has difficulty assimilating into the society of Forks. Although she shows occasional sparks of humor, she seems to be constantly low-spirited and morose. Then she meets Edward, and her real problems only just begin.

Her love for Edward truly borders on obsession; he becomes her sole reason to live. When Edward leaves her in New Moon in order to protect her, Bella becomes suicidal. She is willfully putting herself in dangerous situations so she would experience hallucinations in which Edward begs her not to endanger herself. Bella is willing to give up her life if Edward is not in it, she feels that nothing or no one else is worth living for.

Elena, however, shows a much more adult and reasonable response when Stefan breaks up with her. At first, she accepts it, but when she realizes he is only doing it to protect her, she tells him that that is her decision to make, not his. But not once during this period of their relationship does she show any suicidal tendencies or other unbalanced behavior. She is in love with him, possibly she even loves him, but he is not her life. She has a life and responsibilities outside their relationship.

When Edward tells Bella that he can read everyone’s minds but hers, she is not horrified or even surprised. Her only worry is that there’s something wrong with her because he can’t read her thoughts. Moreover, she constantly emphasizes how she is inferior to Edward, how she doesn’t deserve to be loved by him (this is even more pronounced in the books), she practically worships him as a God, while she sees herself as a lowly, undeserving, unrealized and frail human being.

Elena, on the other hand, never gives the impression that she feels inferior to anyone. She is confident, albeit sad because of the loss of her parents. She is anxious because she cannot feel the same excitement about the activities she used to enjoy. But once she understands that life now is different, that she is different, she has no problem moving on. She does things for herself, for Jeremy, for her friends, instead of just following Stefan around and ditching her own life. She doesn’t desert her family and friends because of her new boyfriend.

Furthermore, even in her relationship with Stefan, Elena keeps her level-headedness. When Stefan loses control because of his human blood addiction, Elena understands the gravity of the situation and the danger in which this puts Stefan, but not once does her love for him waver. She understands that this is part of who he is and that she has to accept it just as much as she accepts his good side. And she doesn’t only observe the situation from afar, instead, she acts and with the help of Damon forces Stefan to get over the addiction.

Bella’s love for Edward, on the other hand, is rarely tested because Edward Cullen is just about the most perfect non-human being in the universe. Even the bruises on Bella’s body after she makes love to Edward for the first time, bruises that are the result of Edward being unable to control his physical strength, get a different meaning when they are presented as his inability to control himself because of his love and passion for Bella. Bella’s calm acceptance of the bruises as a result of Edward’s love for her adds to the disquieting notion of love and physical abuse being interconnected, as this image might suggest.

However, nothing is more disturbing than the ease with which Bella is prepared to give up her life for Edward. Before the end of Twilight, after knowing him for only a couple of months, she’s already prepared for him to turn her into a vampire. And from that moment on, that is her main focus. She is obsessed with age, afraid that if she gets only a year older than Edward he will leave her because she will be too old for him. Everything else pales in comparison to the importance she places on her becoming a vampire. When he stipulates one condition for him to turn her – getting married first – she accepts even that although she doesn’t believe in marriage and she abhors the idea of a wedding.

Of course, Bella has a few very good reasons to want to become a vampire. It’s an obvious prerequisite for her relationship with Edward to ever become fully realized. But there should have been at least some hesitance, questions asked, worries about what this really means, before she makes the final decision. Instead, her impatience to become immortal tramples all other essential life decisions (she forsakes education, children, family life) and even her relationships with her parents and friends (she’s willing to risk her best friend’s life by breaking the treaty). She is willing never to see her family again, and even to fake her own death in order to get what she wants. Her disregard for the moral, ethical and philosophical implications of her decision is worrisome. Her indifference to and even contempt for the meaning of her mortal life is downright ignorant. What this idea suggests and communicates to the readers and viewers is very troublesome, considering this is a young adult read.

On the other hand, we’ve only heard the issue of Elena becoming immortal mentioned once, in the episode Isobel (1.21). It wasn’t Elena who brought it up, it was her estranged mother, a vampire herself. True, the issues Isobel mentions are all significant and noteworthy and will come into play at some point in Elena’s relationship with Stefan (similarly as in the case of Bella and Edward). Elena is practical and realistic, she knows that “forever is very short when you are human” (Isobel, 1.21) without Isobel telling her that, but from what we’ve seen of her character she will do some serious thinking before she makes a decision either way – if she is given the choice, that is. It is inspiring and comforting that this question hasn’t yet been raised in the show’s first season because it shows how comfortable, self-assured and content Elena is with who and what she is. Her character as a whole sends a very positive message to viewers.

While the Twilight saga tells the beautiful story of true and deep love, it does that in a way that portrays women as minor and inferior characters, or gives them some quite disconcerting features, as in Bella’s case. The Vampire Diaries is equally successful of painting the image of strong love, but it doesn’t do it at the expense of character portrayal. The women of Mystic Falls hold their own, they are strong, well-written characters and they’ve developed throughout the season. Bella Swan’s character, on the other hand, doesn’t really develop in the series. Other than falling in love wit Edward, she doesn’t come to any new realizations, there are no new discoveries about herself or her life, no growing up. That makes her character far less intriguing and compelling than for example Bonnie, Jenna or Elena.

Season finales will be the end of me!

2010-05-14T13:55:00.003+02:00

Last night's season finales for Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries left me speechless. I think they rank pretty close to the top of the best finales ever, and after I re-watch them again they might just top that list altogether.

Now I know why Kripke had a plan for five seasons and this finale could've easily been the best series finale. Swan Song, indeed.The idea to use the Impala as the symbol of wrapping up these past five years was beyond brilliant. When the first scene started, showing the engine being put into the car and that freaking prophetic voiceover - I was left gaping at the screen. It took me a while to come to grips with what was going on and for a second I even feared that the beginning was foreshadowing a sad end of the Impala. Luckily, it didn't come to that.

The first time I got teary eyes was when Sam wanted Dean to promise he will go to Lisa and get that "apple pie life". It was a downward spiral after that. For my emotional stability, not the episode. Thank God for the clueless Castiel for bringing much needed comic relief to just about the most intense 45 minutes of my life. "Oh, you mean I have to lie." lol.

At the beginning, when Dean came out to talk to Sam at Bobby's, I knew he was going to say to Sam that if anyone can do it, it's him. I knew it. Because, like he said, it was Dean who had to do some growing up. He realized that by respecting Sam's decision and supporting him he was doing the only 'brotherly' thing that he could. The situation has gone way beyond anything they could've fought, and they could only honor their brotherly connection, their family, by sacrificing themselves.

I loved that they brought up the question of free will when Michael and Lucifer face each other. I already wrote about free will and Dean, and this episode re-opened that question. Only now, even the illusion of free will is shaky because of how close Michael and Lucifer are to God. They exist on a different level than Dean and Sam and I guess the illusion goes poof when it's your Dad who orders you around. Lucifer did have a point, sort of. But there's no smart answer to the question of who's to blame for the crappy human relations and the earthquakes and demon possessions. Luckily, Dean blazed in with his Impala and cut short the philosophical discussion.

That bloody make up on Dean was disturbingly real. It broke my heart, it obviously broke Sam's heart. It was his brother that gave him the strength to win his final battle. Well, him and the toy soldier. Jensen and Jared reached another level of awesomeness in this episode.

Dean going to Lisa's place made it all even sadder because he didn't do it for himself but for Sam. But then the streetlight burnt out ...

The whole framework of Chuck narrating the whole thing gave the episode an even more final tone than if it only showed the story from the beginning to the end. The short flashbacks ... heart-wrenching. Particularly those young faces of Sam and Dean from seasons one and two. So innocent and so unaware of what's coming. But Kripke knew all along. And despite this being only the season finale, I can't get rid of the feeling that it was actually series finale. It felt to freaking ... final. ;)

The Vampire Diaries, on the other hand, felt like it was barely the beginning of the really juicy stuff. Does the Guinness World Record Book list season finales with the most cliffhangers? If it doesn't, it should, and it should put Founder's Day at the top of that list. I will not even try to speculate what all the cliffhangers mean and where they will lead us in September. I'll leave it to Julie and Kevin to shock us all over again in a few months, because I'm sure I could never anticipate the crazy twists they manage to come up with.

I think we've all come to appreciate the great actor that is Ian Somerhalder during this first season of TVD. This episode, though, really showcased what he's capable of as an actor. Moreover, Steven R. McQueen showed some serious acting chops last night. That scene between Jeremy and Damon in Jeremy's room was the darkest, possibly most painful scene in the entire season.

Nina Dobrev was again convincing and great in her role(s). She certainly deserves the Make Their Mark Award she received last night. Her Elena feels like the most grounded and strong (teenage) female character on TV these days. The only one that's on par with her is Bonnie. Yay, girl power! Bonnie single-handedly saved Stefan and Damon without breaking a sweat. She rocks. I hope she keeps this attitude and sureness of character in the next season. And one can't but love Caroline and her heart of gold. She wants everyone to be happy and at peace, but things always go wrong for her in the worst possible way. Poor, Caro. And Matt.

Back to Damon (you had to know I wasn't over yet with just one sentence about him!) What will I do with this guy?! He makes me laugh out loud (causing my family to glance weirdly at me), he breaks my heart, he makes me want to hate him, he makes me want to hug him. And he manages to do that in the span of 45 minutes. Every single week. Kevin and Julie, please spare my heart, just make him evil again. I could handle that more easily. *sigh*

Like I said, that scene with Jeremy ... It blew my mind away. So much angst on my tiny screen! Damon has been evil and remorseless for so long that having actual human feelings again is truly making him feel uncomfortable. That was so obvious when he ran into 'Elena' on the porch. He honestly doesn't know how to act (I mean Damon, not Ian) in this new situation. For a moment there I thought he was actually horrified that he wanted to help Anna when John killed her. I'm sure the old Damon would think it hilarious. But this new one doesn't. He kisses Elena's cheek, for crying out loud! Is there anything sweeter than that?

I can't decide whether he figured it out that it was Katherine, though. He doesn't have a clue, at first, because otherwise he would've stopped Jenna from inviting her in. But then ... maybe, just maybe. Also, Katherine had the necklace hidden under her top while Elena had it in a visible spot. I only saw that later. Clever trick.

I have to say it, though, as much as the Katherine twist shocked me and sent me into a fit of giddy giggling at the brilliance of it, it totally spoiled that kiss for me. I honestly thought we got our first Damon and Elena kiss, and an über hot one at that. Well, there's always next season ...

Last but not least, a word about the sadly departed ... Jeremy is coming back, I'm sure. One way or another. More angst for Elena, though. Mayor Lockwood, can't say I'll miss him and I'm intrigued as to how this will affect Tyler. John Gilbert, I definitely won't miss him. But I will miss Anna. Her character, despite being a minor role, was so well developed and so well-written, not to mention that Malese Jow did a great job. Anyway, this is a show about the undead, so no one's death is a sure thing, right? Maybe not all the dead are actually dead ...

I Got Hitched

2010-05-11T17:06:00.003+02:00

Exactly five months ago I got married on a beach in Sydney. It feels like it was yesterday, but it also feels like it was a long time ago. Do you ever get that feeling about an event or vacation? I do, often. Life's so busy and time is rushing by and one day you suddenly remember something that you think happened just last week until you check the calendar and see that it was last year. It's insane.

Anyway, the month I spent in Australia was so tightly packed with trips and sightseeing and other stuff that it was hard to catch up. But I enjoyed every second of it. Australia is unlike any country or continent I have ever seen and I have seen a few. It offers experiences you could never imagine. And the wildlife is stunning and scary.

I don't think I ever mentioned it here, but I actually swam with sharks. Well, one shark and it was a baby shark, but still ... We went snorkeling at the Reef and among the tiny blue and yellow fish there was a small shark, about a yard or so big. Even if it bit me, the damage probably wouldn't be life-threatening, but the feeling of seeing a shark in the wild was exhilarating nonetheless. And in Byron Bay we saw a lizard that was about two yards long. Now, the biggest lizard here is about seven or eight inches long, so imagine meeting a dinosaur-wannabe! You can probably imagine my flight or fight response - definitely leaning towards flight!

Oh, and if you ever visit Australia, you have to try their wine. I tried several dozen wines and they were all exceptional. Just be careful because they tend to have high alcohol contents due to the perennially sunny weather. ;-)

Mommie dearest is back

2010-05-10T11:58:00.003+02:00

Just a few more days till the season finales of Supernatural and Vampire Diaries! The episodes from last week left me reeling. They were both examples of outstandingly good planning, plotting and writing. And all those shocking revelations in The Vampire Diaries! My my, lots to take in. Despite heaps of work this weekend, I managed to watch TVD four times (so far).

I must say I admire the ability of the writers to completely change a character in just a few lines. Isobel in "Isobel" showed barely any resemblance to the Isobel from the previous flashbacks. Mia Kirshner did a great job, as well. By the way, is it just Isobel or are vampires in general so very perceptive? She only needed a moment or two to read Damon, while Elena and the others don't have a clue. Well, Stefan may have had his suspicions ... All those meaningful glances in this episode. Paul Wesley is so good we could simply do away with the writers altogether because he doesn't even need lines to relate heaps of meaning.

I'm a little worried about Jeremy, though. That nod from John when Jeremy hung up after the conversation with Elena was was very ominous. I was a bit comforted when I saw Jer with Anna later on and I'm hoping that he hasn't been completely indoctrinated by Uncle John and that he won't side with the all-vampires-must-die party. I would hate to see him and Anna break up, they're so cute together.

Jeremy was also the only character who seemed to be written a bit inconsistently. After admitting to Anna that he doesn't really mind Elena and Damon erasing his memories of Vicki, in this episode, he wouldn't let Elena explain and he was obviously angry with her. Also, the scene where he catches up with Elena in the school yard to ask her whether she's seen Anna and then accuses her of lying, felt a bit awkward to me. Why ask her and then not believe her?

Anyway, four more days till the explosive finale! Judging from the pace of this season, it'll be earth shattering. :D

Don't judge a book by its cover

2010-05-09T16:29:00.010+02:00

There's an interesting piece in The Guardian about book covers and why they are different in each country. I always love looking at various book covers and comparing them to see which ones work and which ones don't.

Here are a few of the books mentioned in the article.

Linkity-link

2010-05-04T07:44:00.004+02:00

I had a productive Monday. Still, I wish the days were longer. I can't believe it's already Tuesday. Time goes by much too quickly (and I repeat this so often, I'll have it written on my tombstone. lol.)

I'm sharing a few interesting links today.

First, one that is related to my yesterday's post about censorship. Children's author, Dan Gutman, discusses how he corrupted America's youth with his books. Is it right for a parent who doesn't want his kids to read a certain book, to demand to have the book banned from school? I agree with Dan, what about you?

Second, translators unite! Why translators deserve some credit? And regular pay, I might add. We work in the background, but without us, literary works would never cross language borders.
If you are a young Spanish-English translator, enter for this translator's prize. Good luck!

Third, a sincere piece on book blogging. Why do too nice and gentle book reviews do a disservice to their female authors?I believe in being nice, but fair. A review with a bit of constructive criticism can sting at first, but it gives the author a truthful feedback, something we ultimately all want.

p.s. I think the 'writing' tag is a bit redundant in my blog, since all posts seem to be about writing, anyway. :-) :-)

I know what's good for you

2010-05-03T08:16:00.001+02:00

Recently, we had a heated debate on morality in literature and the question of censorship in our post-grad class.

There are so many issues linked to this question and it’s a debate that can go on equally long as the one about which was first: the hen or the egg.

I would love to say that in literature there is no place for censorship. But that would be too rash a dismissal of such a complex issue. Matthew Anger sets quite strict rules that Christian authors should follow in this article, Faith and Fiction. But he does a big disservice to his cause by so blatantly painting the readers as inferior and ignorant enough not to be able to think for themselves.

Barthes has long ago claimed that the author is dead, meaning: a text only becomes a text with the reader’s interpretation of it. Each text is a collective work of the author as well as the reader. Therefore, claiming that the author holds sole responsibility for the ‘morality’ of the text is nonsense.

In this article, Kant is quoted to have said, “Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another.” I tend to agree. An adult, intelligent being has a responsibility to act and think for him or herself. Hence, if a text is so immoral that it corrupts the reader, is that really the problem of the text (or author) or is the problem in the immature reader? Think about it. We cannot be held responsible for someone else’s acts – if a writer writes an immoral text, we as readers are not responsible for it, but we are accountable for our interpretation of it. And vice versa, if the reader chooses to read it in a way that corrupts her or him, that is not our responsibility as the author.

The best censorship (perhaps the only one that should be allowed) is self-censorship. But herein lies the real Catch 22. If we were all mature and responsible enough to be capable of self-censorship as authors or as readers, then no censorship would be needed at all. But we clearly don’t have to worry about this paradox because we do need censorship (just look at all the stuff that appears on the internet!). Now, who has the right to impose censorship rules? And who is obliged to follow them? I don’t know and I don’t know anyone who has an answer, much less the right answer. There are limits that we can’t overstep as Umberto Eco says, but these limits seem to be more or less self-imposed in the Western world. It’s more a question of opinions, common sense and good taste, rather than firm rules. And I guess, that’s a good thing. It’s the closest we got so self-censorship so far.

A Beautiful Day

2010-05-01T22:36:00.016+02:00

It was Labour Day today. My husband and I decided to go on a short trip because the weather was just too beautiful not to enjoy it outside. So we went to Arboretum Volčji potok where they have the annual tulip exhibition, and there was also a special dinosaur exhibition that we didn't know about until we arrived.

The crowd was quite unbelievable. There were thousands of people there and I was quite shocked. But it made sense since it was Saturday and a beautiful day. I also dressed way too warm for the day. It was almost like summer.

We enjoyed walking around the park, among the hundreds of thousands (apparently there are more than 2 million tulips there) of tulips and the stunning dinosaurs.

On our way home, we also stopped at The Škocjan Caves that are on the UNESCO's list of natural world heritage sites. These photos don't do them justice because they were taken without flash, so they're darkish and blurry. Check out their website, or better yet - visit them! :-)

Hundreds of visitors and dozens of ?

2010-04-27T14:01:00.002+02:00

I can't believe how many people have read my Damon essay! Wow, it left me speechless. And to think I nearly didn't post it because I thought it was way too long for a blog and too boring for anyone else but me to enjoy it.

Anyway, you can now read it also in Italian, thanks to the lovely ladies at the Vampire Diaries Italia. :-)

I also got a few e-mails asking when I will write a similar piece on Stefan, Elena etc. So I want to clear things up. I wrote the essay about Damon because I love the character (not to say that I don't love Stefan or Elena or anyone else on the show) and because his character somewhat fit with Frankl's theories. But I am not a psychiatrist nor have I ever studied psychology or philosophy. By profession I am a translator and a writer, I am only familiar with Frankl's work because of my personal interests in it, not because of my profession. So in short, I could never do justice in trying to analyze Stefan or someone else from the psychological point of view, because that is not my forte. Damon just simply fit and that's all there is to it. Sorry, Stefan fans! ;)

I am thinking about writing another VD essay, but this one will be (if I actually manage to write it) written from a literary point of view - which is, in fact, what I studied and am good at. :)

Hopefully, I'll get around to writing it as soon as I get a book I ordered from Amazon, so check back soon to read it.

In the meantime, I'm trying to find an interesting script to analyze for my Script Writing unit next month. There's so much stuff on the internet, I can't decide which one to choose. It would be cool if I got a VD one, though.

Her Morning Elegance

2010-04-17T09:31:00.001+02:00

I snagged this video from Ancien Nouveau's blog. It's very cute and happy. Check it out:

woes of writing

2010-04-14T07:04:00.005+02:00

Writing in a foreign language usually means a lot more effort and time than if you write in your mother tongue. Even if you're fluent in the language, you still always feel a tiny bit insecure and you feel the need to check everything twice and make sure everything is fine. One would think that so much effort should count for something, right? Wrong. Especially, if you have as much bad luck as me. I have to work twice as hard for every publication, I never just luck out. Not once! You don't believe me?

Here are a few examples of bad timing, bad luck and all other sorts of bad that happen to me on a regular basis. At least five or six times it has happened that the editors misplaced my manuscript and only found it once the magazine was already in print or online. Or, if they didn't misplace it, they loved my story but they had another one that was a tiny bit better suited for their publication so they had to - unfortunately, sadly - reject it. Better luck next time. Or I sent a submission in and I got a prompt reply that they'd already selected the authors for their next issue/book/magazine. I sent a submission and waited and waited and after a few months I got the reply that they would like to publish it and then after a week or so I got a message that the magazine had gone bankrupt and they wouldn't publish anymore. It's true, I'm not making this up! It has actually happened. Probably not to many people, but it has happened to me.

Last night I got three rejections, two of which were among the above examples. It just made me sad. So I'm hoping for a better day today.

scripts

2010-04-09T18:43:00.003+02:00

In one month and a half I start Script Writing! This is the continuation of the first unit on script writing that I had last year. Here are two pages of the sample script we had to write, an adaptation of a story or novel to film.

I chose Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife. I admit, I still haven't seen the film to check how different the actual script was from what I came up with. I have to say that both units on script writing are among the most exciting in this program. Just three more units to go!

You're dead, dude. Get over it.

2010-04-07T07:02:00.003+02:00

“You’re dead, dude. Get over it.”
Or Damon’s search for his purpose in life

At first glance, Damon Salvatore seems like the coolest dude in the neighborhood. At a second glance he is revealed to be a merciless, violent predator with no regard for human life. Only at the third glance, one can begin to understand his motivation. For one hundred and forty-five years he has been wandering the planet; he is immortal, he has no friends and he hates his closest relative, his brother. He used to love a woman, but she is gone; he used to have a life and a purpose, but he lost them both. What is stopping him from finding new meaning in life and what could help him find it again? And could he ever become more than a senseless jerk and a heartless killer?

Glancing at Damon Salvatore’s un-life, one could say: what could he want more? He’s young, in his twenties, “ridiculously hot” as Jenna describes him (Children of the Damned, 1.13), powerful and extremely smart. Oh, yes, and there’s that other thing – he’s immortal. He has it all, in short. So why is he such a conflicting personality, why is he so bored and angry? Why can’t he, after a hundred and forty-five years, move on and try to adapt to the new circumstances like Stefan who is well adapted and trying to be good and normal?

The biggest problem, it seems, is that Damon is still trying to find meaning in his un-life, after more than a century. “Man, unlike the animals, has no instincts to tell him what he must do.” (Frankl 1994 8) And Damon has all the symptoms (boredom, penchant for unnecessary violence, scheming, drinking, girls) that point toward existential vacuum or even the beginnings of noogenic neurosis. Existential vacuum is a state caused by man’s unsuccessful search for meaning which causes their life to feel empty. The person suffering from meaninglessness tries to fill the void with drugs, alcohol, food, violence or other excessive physical activity. Perhaps Damon’s animal-like instincts for a while after he was turned guided him, but once he regained his ‘humanity’ and intelligence, he was again lost. The only solution for him is finding meaning. After a hundred and fifty years, that can be quite a task. And for Damon, the problems started, surprisingly not with his death, but with his immortality.

Logotherapy is a psychotherapeutic theory developed by Viktor E. Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist. He didn’t believe that the origin of man’s dissatisfaction with life was in his environment, upbringing, or genes. Frankl attempted to show people how to search for meaning within themselves, or as Sartre says of man, “he himself will have made what he will be.” (Sartre) The meaning, for Frankl, or for existentialists for that matter, is not in God or any other greater force, it is within man. So the meaning cannot be taught or prescribed, it’s different for every person and it changes constantly.(i)

From the flashbacks we got so far, Damon didn’t seem to have any problems with finding meaning in his life prior to his death. Perhaps he seems to be showing signs of unconformity or even immaturity for his age – Stefan often acts more mature and once we even see him mediate between Damon and his father when they fight over Damon deserting the army (Children of the Damned 1.13). But Damon’s life was far from empty, he had plans for the future. He was a man “who hurls himself toward a future and who is conscious of imagining himself as being in the future.” (Sartre) Nothing attests more firmly that a man found his purpose in life than his planning for the future. In Damon’s case, a future with Katherine, as a vampire.

Then, two events caused his loss of meaning and the consequent hundred-and-forty-five-year long search. First was the loss of Katherine. Any loss of a loved person is accompanied with extreme grief. Damon’s loss was that much greater because he blamed his beloved younger brother for it. He considered Stefan’s deed a treason of their friendship and of their love for the same woman. The second event was Damon’s own death and his subsequent resurrection as an undead vampire.

In fact, this second one could possibly be more devastating for his search of purpose than the loss of his love. Death, in terms of existential psychology, is a gift to human kind. It makes us face our mortality, it sets us a deadline, if you wish, makes us aware that we don’t have much time and that we have to hurry if we want to achieve any kind of self-realization. It drives us on towards personal growth, it gives us a reason to live, forces us to find meaning and to be grateful for the things, people, and relationships we have in life. Death and “all strokes of fate, suffering and even the greatest losses that we have to suffer (…), all of these are gifts. (…) This is a chance for us to grow spiritually.” (Kübler-Ross 27)(ii) All this is taken away from Damon when he dies and then becomes immortal. His deadline (pun not intended) is lifted, he suddenly seems to be free. He has all the time in the world to do whatever he wants.

The problem emerges when one doesn’t know what they want – like Damon. He’s hurt, feels betrayed, he’s lost in a new world he knows almost nothing about, he is isolated. Although we haven’t seen any scenes from the brothers’ lives right after they were turned, I’d bet Stefan was far quicker to get into the swing of things and move on. He’s more practical and mature than his older brother, while Damon is volatile, unstable and, although this will probably seem opposite to what we’ve seen on the show so far, I dare say he’s more emotional than Stefan.

Since the moment he was turned, very few things have changed for Damon in the century and a half that he spent following Stefan around and trying to make his life miserable. He drowned his sorrow in booze, women and their blood. He acted out by committing gratuitous and excessively violent acts, by a general disregard for the sacredness of human life and human feelings. He cared for nothing and no one. This, according to Frankl, is a symptom of existential vacuum, the absence of meaning in one’s life. “The frustration of the existential need for meaningful goals will give rise to aggression, addiction, depression and suicidality.” (Viktor Frankl institute) It’s worth noting here, that Damon’s efforts at making Stefan’s life miserable were perhaps not simply an attempt to pay Stefan back for his treason, but could well have been done in order to get his brother to kill him and thus save him the suffering he was experiencing. (In 162 Candles, 1.8, for example, after stabbing Damon with a stake, Stefan says, “You saved my life, I’m sparing yours.”)

Boredom, too, is a symptom. “People nowadays live in existential vacuum and one of the most conspicuous signs of it in our society is boredom.” (Frankl 1994 44) Damon is so bored, he turns Vicki so she could entertain him for awhile. (Haunted, 1.7) He has all the time in the world to do what he wants, but it seems he doesn’t want to do anything at all.

Furthermore, while Damon was still a human, the society was guided by an extensive set of values. But through the decades after his death and particularly in the second half of the 20th century, society has lost its direction, values have become all but derelict. “In recent years, no conventions, tradition or values tell man what he should do; often he doesn’t even know what he wants to do.” (Frankl 1994 77) Therefore, Damon doesn’t even have these general guidelines to rely upon in the already familiar situations. Moreover, “it is conscience that finds the meaning in each particular situation.” (Frankl 1994 78) Unfortunately, Damon’s conscience is numb, buried under the heap of bodies he left behind.

As Frankl suggests, there are three ways in which we can find meaning in life. This is either by doing a deed or creating something; by experiencing a value such as the beauty of nature, art, human relations, a specific person (in Damon’s case his love for Katherine), or by finding meaning in suffering. After Katherine’s death, Damon’s sorrow and pain were probably very real. “When faced with (…) loss, the most powerful forms of attachment behaviour are activated in an attempt to reinstate the relationship.” (Behavioural Neurotherapy Clinic) In other words, after the loss of a beloved person the mourning process starts. Every person experiencing grief reacts in a different way and expresses the emotions differently, but all go through approximately the same stages of recovery. And although Damon’s recovery is hindered by his social and emotional isolation (from his brother because he resents him, and from the rest of the society because as a vampire he cannot assimilate) and by his emotions for Katherine that apparently become even stronger for vampires than they were when they were mortals (“Anything you felt before would be magnified now.” This is how Damon explains Logan Fell’s strong emotions for Jenna in The Turning Point, 1.10), his mourning process cannot last for decades.

Therefore, while Damon could find his purpose in suffering, this is possible only when the suffering is inevitable and the two other options are not available. And while Damon knows how to wallow in sorrow (and he looks very hot while doing it, if I may add), the normal and healthy response of mourning can only last for a certain period of time. For a hundred and forty-five years? Not very likely.

Apart from the newly absent deadline that his immortality removed, the second reason for Damon’s existential crisis is his isolation. “He can not be anything (in the sense that we say that someone is witty or nasty or jealous) unless others recognize it as such. In order to get any truth about myself, I must have contact with another person. The other is indispensable to my own existence, as well as to my knowledge about myself.” (Sartre) Damon, although following Stefan around and repeatedly punishing him for his betrayal, has emotionally isolated himself from his younger brother. He numbs himself to Stefan’s opinions, pleas, advice or admonitions, because Stefan hurt him before and he must make sure that he cannot hurt him again. He can achieve that only by not repeating the mistake of trusting him.(iii)

In addition to that, Damon is now also a new and different being in the old world. He cannot assimilate, in fact, he is forced to move every few years in order to stay undetected since people would soon notice that he doesn’t age. This effectively isolates him from the society since he cannot form any long-term relationships, and social isolation can have substantial deleterious effects. These effects are twofold in Damon’s case.

A prolonged lack of social stimuli, or in other words of the feedback that we get from the people surrounding us, can lead to anxiety and aggressive behavior, further intensified in Damon by his existential frustration. Society functions as our mirror, it shows us who we are and often forces us to amend our ways when we step over the line. But with that mirror removed, we only have our own, very subjective opinion of ourselves; here are no rules, no sanctions, no response to our behavior even when it is unacceptable, wrong or violent. Damon can kill anyone he likes, who is going to stop him? After decades of isolation, he no longer has an objective sense of himself, he’s the king of his own twisted world. He is extremely powerful, inventive and immortal and his adversaries are mere humans. He thinks he does not need to take responsibility for his actions because no one demands it of him, not even his numbed conscience.

On the other hand, Damon’s isolation also adds to his existential crisis. “He can not be anything unless others recognize it as such,” says Sartre. And also, “man is nothing else than his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he is therefore nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life.” (Sartre) If a man is what his actions are, that suggests that he is nothing unless his actions are recognized by others. Damon’s actions mostly go unnoticed because he is emotionally (and to a certain extent socially) isolated. He doesn’t get a proper response to his actions, therefore they seem unrealized and he feels unfulfilled. He lacks purpose; his life is empty.

Damon finds himself stuck in a rut. He lost everything with the loss of Katherine, besides, he has already fulfilled his life’s purpose before his death and finds himself lost after his resurrection. Now that he is un-dead, he feels no motivation to find a new meaning because there is no looming death on the horizon to force him to hurry with his plans. His isolation and the hedonistic life style he became addicted to are major obstacles on his way to self-actualization. Furthermore, Damon’s sense of humor, too, acts as a barrier between himself and the world. “Humor allows man to create perspective, to put distance between himself and whatever may confront him.” (Frankl 1994 96) Although Viktor Frankl understands humor as a helpful tool in man’s search for meaning, Damon is using it to set up a wall that cannot be breached by others.

Another of Damon’s mistakes is also that he seeks happiness: “Why do you get a happy ending and I don’t?” (Fool Me Once, 1.14) Frankl says, “Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue (…) as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a course greater than oneself”. (Frankl 2000 xiv) Damon could only gain happiness by first finding his purpose in something else; reaching a goal should be the reason to feel happy. Instead, he is pursuing pleasure as such by engaging in casual sexual relationships. According to him, he did a college campus two decades ago, he also seduces Caroline, chats up Mrs. Lockwood and Mrs. Donovan, and tries to unsuccessfully seduce Elena in Friday Night Bites (1.3) and several times afterwards. But his very intention to gain happiness prevents him from reaching it because happiness or pleasure as such cannot be a man’s purpose, they can only be a byproduct of him attaining a goal.

Similarly as the will to pleasure, the will to power is also just a substitute for the will to meaning. Damon seeks power by drinking human blood that gives him his vampire abilities, abilities that Stefan lacks because he’s drinking animal blood. A good illustration of Damon seeking power over Stefan is the scene on the roof with Vicki in Friday Night Bites. He compels Vicki to tell people that it was Stefan who bit her. With this he is trying to force Stefan to drink her blood (so he would get the power) so he could rectify what Damon did. But Stefan refuses to play his game. Despite himself, Damon seems to be impressed with Stefan’s decision. The same way he exerts his power over Zach by using his physical strength, or by using compulsion over Caroline, Vicki and others. And he tries to manipulate Elena to turn her against Stefan by telling Caroline that Stefan did horrible things to get Katherine to love him instead of Damon, knowing very well that Caroline would not be able to keep that to herself and would tell Bonnie who would tell Elena. (Family Ties 1.4)

All this is done because Damon is experiencing existential frustration, i.e. he can’t find a sense of purpose. By now you are probably wondering how I could forget his love for Katherine. After all, she was the whole meaning of his life before he died, he was willing to defy his father because of her and even willing to let her turn him into a vampire just so he could stay with her. And yes, finding her again and bringing her back to the un-dead is the essence of his “diabolical master plan” and “diabolical plan, the sequel”. Even Elena says, “You know I really think that Damon believes that everything he’s done, every move that he’s made, he’s done it for love. It’s twisted, but kind of sad.” (Children of the Damned 1.13)

But how real are his feelings for Katherine after more than a century? Perhaps his need to get her back is just a fake sense of purpose for him, a goal he has set himself to keep himself occupied, to give him a reason to live and to survive the endless and lonely decades ahead of him without going insane. So instead of seeking the real meaning of his life and moving on, he’s hung up on Katherine, craving her return and investing his efforts in devising a plan to get her back.

This view of the situation can be supported by several events from the show. In Lost Girls, 1.6, Damon admits to Vicki, “I’ve been in love. It’s painful, pointless and overrated.” In History Repeating (1.9) Stefan realizes that Damon’s plan to bring Katherine back “isn’t about love, is it? This is about revenge.” Another indicator is Damon’s description of Katherine to Elena, “She was beautiful, a lot like you in that department. She was also very complicated, and selfish, at times not very kind, but very sexy and seductive.” (Friday Night Bites, 1.3) His words express a very lucid assessment of her character, it seems he is not deceiving himself about her nature, instead, he openly admits that she was complicated, selfish and at times unkind. The only positive features that he mentions are her sexiness and seductiveness – both referring to the more superficial traits rather than her deeper personality characteristics. All this points more to Damon having been infatuated with Katherine, rather than really loving her.

On the other hand, we witnessed several instances that prove the contrary. When we see the flashback of Katherine being captured by the townsfolk in Children of the Damned (1.13), Damon’s heartbreak is evident. Similarly, when he discovers that she is not in the tomb under the old church (Fool Me Once, 1.14) and later in the same episode when Anna tells him that she saw Katherine in Chicago in 1983 and that Katherine knew where he was but didn’t care. Afterwards, he’s drowning his pain in drink and girls for days, but keeps saying he’s fine. So his feelings for Katherine are confused and confusing at best, but that is partly due to the ongoing story arc of this season.

In addition to all this ambiguity about his emotions for Katherine, he has also begun showing signs that he is warming up to Elena. In the same scene as above, he says to Elena, “I like you, you know how to laugh.” (Friday Night Bites, 1.3) A few scenes later, he tries to kiss her. She slaps him and says she’s not Katherine. That, it seems, does not deter or repel him (as it would if he believed that she could substitute Katherine), instead he seems more determined than before to get her as is hinted at in the next episode when he suddenly decides to stay in Mystic Falls. “I’ve decided to stay a while. I’m just having way too much fun here with you (Stefan) and Elena.” (Family Ties, 1.4)

His interest in Elena can, to a certain extent, be explained with her rejection of him. She is unlike any other girl he has ever met because he can’t manipulate her. She seems oblivious to his male charms and Stefan made sure she wears her vervain necklace at all times to prevent Damon from compelling her (although we will see later on that he is reluctant to use compulsion on her anyway). Elena is far from easy to get and that creates tension in Damon. This tension represents the discrepancy between what one is (or has) and what one wants to be (or have). In short, this tension alludes to emerging traces of purpose in Damon’s life.

Despite Damon threatening to kill Elena in Friday Night Bites, Stefan says he knows he won’t do it “because deep down inside there’s a part of you that feels for (Elena). I was worried that you had no humanity left inside of you, that you may have actually become the monster that you pretend to be …” (Friday Night Bites 1.3) And then Stefan taunts him further, “No, you’re not (going to kill me). You’ve had lifetimes to do it and yet, here I am. I’m still alive.” If Damon had any intention of really killing him, this goading would probably be enough to push him over the edge and finally do it. But he doesn’t hurt Stefan or Elena, instead he attacks Mr. Tanner because he has to prove to himself that he is still as indifferent as ever. His killing the football coach does not show that Damon is indeed the monster that he pretends to be, if anything, it shows that he is again starting to feel, as is proven at the end of the episode when we see him caressing Elena’s cheek while she sleeps.

His lashing out at people around him shows that he is getting insecure and vulnerable again after long decades. And he finds his only defense in violence because now he cannot distance himself from the others anymore, he needs the others to distance themselves from him. The proof that the meaning of his violent behavior now is different can be inferred from the fact that he occasionally balances it out by doing something good. In Haunted, 1.7, when Elena blames him for Vicki’s death, he says, “You confuse me for someone with remorse.” Despite that, he helps Elena’s brother Jeremy at the end of the episode and erases his memory of Vicki’s death in order to take away his suffering.

An even more important indicator of his growing affection for Elena is his hurt when she lies to him in Children of the Damned (1.13). “You had me fooled,” he says to Elena and his disappointment is genuine and clear. Elena recognizes this in the very telling scene in Fool Me Once (1.14):

Elena: I was protecting the people I love, Damon. But so were you, in your own twisted way. And as hard as it is to figure, we’re all on the same side, after the same thing.
Damon: Not interested.
Elena: Yes you are, because you were willing to work with us yesterday.
Damon: Fool me once, shame on you.
Elena: Okay, when we were in Atlanta, why didn’t you use your compulsion on me?
Damon: Who’s to say I didn’t?
Elena: You didn’t. I know you didn’t. But you could have. You and I, we have something. An understanding. And I know that my betrayal hurt you, different from how it is with you and Stefan. But I am promising you this now, I will help you get Katherine back.
Damon: I wish I could believe you.
Elena: Ask me if I’m lying now. (Elena removes her vervain necklace that prevents him from compelling her)
(…)
Damon: I didn’t compel you in Atlanta because we were having fun. I wanted it to be real. I’m trusting you. Don’t make me regret it.

This scene reveals a lot about Damon and about his relationship with Elena. After one hundred and forty-five years he has finally found someone he wants to trust. Why wants? Because he trusted her before when she told him he can believe Stefan that he would help him get Katherine. But Stefan betrayed him. Despite that, Damon is again trusting Elena, although he knows from experience that she is untrustworthy. It could be said that his trust is blind. He wants his relationship with Elena to be real and true, that is why he is also reluctant to use compulsion on her.

Since I’m discussing trust, it should be noted that Damon’s name is highly ironic in this context. Stefan says of Damon, “Trust isn’t something that comes naturally to him.” (Children of the Damned, 1.13) This is in turn hypocritical and revealing; the first, because Damon has trust issue because of Stefan’s betrayal that ended in Katherine’s death, the second because it shows Damon to be the exact opposite of the Damon from the legend that symbolizes loyalty and friendship (and from which the name Damon derives). In a story, reported by Aristoxenus, Damon and Pythias were friends. When Pythias was sentenced to death, he asked his captor, Dyonisius, to let him go home to say goodbye and arrange his things, and Damon took his spot as a hostage until Pythias returned. When the time of the execution came, Dyonisius was ready to execute Damon because Pythius hasn’t returned yet. But he came just in time, explaining he had to escape from pirates and swim to the shore to return in time to save Damon. Dyonisius was so impressed he spared both of their lives. (Wikipedia)

It would seem that Damon Salvatore needs Elena to be his Pythias. He cannot trust Stefan again (yet), because he learned the hard way that he is not to be trusted. His brother’s betrayal ended in Katherine’s death and Damon has not yet gotten over that. But with Elena, he could have a new start. She reminds him of Katherine just enough to create the feeling of closeness, and she’s different from Katherine in the most important aspects of her personality – instead of selfish, manipulating and unkind, Elena is altruistic, caring, sincere and warm. Damon trusting Elena could establish his first true relationship in his life after Katherine, and thus help him find his purpose again.

Another factor that sobers Damon is Stefan’s attempt at killing him in You’re Undead To Me (1.5). In the past, both have threatened to kill the other, but it all came to nothing. In You’re Undead To Me, though, Stefan’s attempt at neutralizing Damon seems very serious; he captures him after he weakened him with vervain, and he keeps him locked in the cellar where Damon can’t get any blood. Stefan’s determination is obvious. He tells Caroline that Damon is not coming back. However, he does not count on Damon’s powers of compulsion being strong enough to call Caroline to help him. Damon is able to escape, but he gets a new realization from the whole affair – he is not as immortal as he would like to think.

It took Damon a very long time to come to terms with the past and to look ahead into the future. In fact, it took him almost three times as long as an average human being has to figure it out. But it is precisely because he has an unlimited lifetime that caused him to search for so long. For awhile after he was turned, his animal-like instincts probably guided him through life. But once his ‘humanity’ re-emerged, he began to feel empty. I suspect he substituted a real purpose in life with a fake sense of purpose in trying to bring Katherine back. Several factors point to his love for her not being real, but the coming episodes have yet to reveal more about that.

Meeting Elena seems to be the turning point for Damon. Her reluctance to succumb to his male charms and her necklace that prevents his compulsion from working on her are making her a difficult, almost unreachable target. He is not used to being opposed or denied. Therefore, the dynamic with Elena is creating a sense of tension in him, a pull towards a new goal – winning Elena. Perhaps this will wake him from him numbness now that he can sense a purpose in the distance, and force him to engage with life as he says it himself, “You have to engage. You can’t just sit there and wait for life to come to you. You have to go get it.” (Friday Night Bites, 1.3) It’s high time he listened to his own advice. But then again, he has hundreds of years to do it.

Resources

Behavioural Neurotherapy Clinic http://www.adhd.com.au/grief.htm, 2.4.2010

Sartre, Jean-Paul, Existentialism and Human Emotions.

Viktor Frankl Institute, http://www.viktorfrankl.org/e/logotherapy.html, 1.4.2010

Frankl, Viktor Emil, Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press, 2000.

Frankl, Viktor Emil, The Will to Meaning. Celje: Mohorjeva družba, 1994.

Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damon_and_Pythias, 2.4.2010

Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth, On Life After Death. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1998.

-------------------------
(i) There's a slight difference between logotherapy and existentialism in this regard. Frankl claimed that meanings cannot be invented, rather, they already exist we only have to search for them. Sartre maintains, however, that we create meaning.
(ii) All quotes from Kübler-Ross and Frankl 1994 were translated by me.
(iii) I will discuss trust to a greater detail later on.

NaPoWriMo

2010-04-06T07:28:00.002+02:00

Since April is NaPoWriMo, here's one of my older poems. I don't usually write funny things, so this is a true rarity. ;)

Virtually in love

Lovesick, we’re terrified of losing connection –

a stroke of lightning might burn the relay

when our gushing romance winds its way

through optical fibers that overheat

from our passion, throbbing through cables

in zeros and ones and not the kisses of fables.

Is the affection any more meaningless

if expressed through binary arithmetic

instead of the gestures of the pathetic?

Is the heat less warm and authentic

if produced by the friction of electrons

instead of the kisses, caresses bygone?

Love in real time, perhaps, is more real

but break-ups are easier and hurt less

when it’s enough to unplug the wireless.

Slovenian in Australia

2010-03-29T13:45:00.003+02:00

Discussing communications theories at Uni this past few weeks reminded me of an event while travelling in Australia.

In Sydney, we met an Australian at one of the city landmarks and while we were signing up for a tour, he asked us where we're from. When we told him, he replied that we'll have to wait just five minutes for the tour. And he said it in Slovenian.

I didn't understand him at first. Okay, so his pronunciation probably wasn't exemplary but still. I should've understood him the first time around, but I didn't because I simply didn't expect to hear my mother tongue spoken at the other end of the world.

That goes to show how much of our communication relies on our expectations. It's a given that in Sydney you speak English and English only, so when that assumption is proven wrong it takes a while to really grasp it. We have to be willing to forget the givens and open our minds and let them go with the flow in order to be able to really understand other people. Otherwise, misunderstandings follow very quickly.

2010-03-18T17:16:00.002+01:00

I wanted to share this article on YA literature and which themes are too 'difficult' for young adults to read. I think it very nicely explains that what young adults encounter in books is in most cases far less difficult to understand than what they encounter in their lives.

And here's another poem by me, Gift from grandpa. :-)

Text, lies & coloring books

2010-03-14T19:48:00.001+01:00

My sister and I always had coloring books around the house as children. We liked colors, the freedom of creating, of defiantly painting a dog pink and a girl’s face green. The first signs of insubordination and desire to rule our own worlds. Another reason why I liked coloring books so much was that they contained no words, no written stories.

It’s not that I didn’t like stories, not at all, it was the opportunity that coloring books offered me to make up my own tales. My sister and I, we would sit on the balcony overlooking the brownish green river in the summer, and I would be turning page after page of the coloring book and weaving the people, dogs, parrots, hot air balloons and everything else into one long story. I was trying to see whether I could include each and every object, animal or person in the book into one story and still make sense. I can’t remember whether I succeeded, but I do know this is my first distinct memory of me making up stories and loving it.

I loved it a tiny bit less when I started school. There was no time for coloring books then, it was all long division and predicates and the year of the French revolution (I mention this year because it’s the only one I remember from History classes). There was no space to include my own stories, it seemed all the stories had already been written and the only thing I could do was to learn them. It felt like the world didn’t want to listen to what I had to say, to my fairy tales and mysteries and adventure sagas. As a result, I felt I needed to give them credibility, to ground them in real life so that the audience will be willing to listen and identify with them.

It’s just that I went the wrong way about it. In my naivety I believed that the stories would sound truer if I claimed they happened to me or my family. But just how many lower middle class families regularly go on treasure hunts or unravel murder mysteries? Yes, it turned out not so many. I got accused of being a liar. A lot. But what stung more was the ridicule, the words that I feared struck too close to home, the accusation that my life was so dull I had to invent stories to make up for it. I can still hear the chanting behind my back, “Loser, loser!”

What has changed since then? Not much. I finished school (and then enrolled again after a few years, again becoming – to my unceasing astonishment – the object of ridicule because of my bookishness), I now use keyboard instead of a pen – farewell middle finger blisters! –, but yes, my life is still equally dull as back then and I have to invent stories to make up for it. I just do it the legitimate way now. I actually reverted to writing instead of lying at the beginning of my teens. When I was fourteen, I had my first romantic story published and the magazine had to pay my mom as I didn’t yet have my own bank account.

Mom doesn’t have to ‘lend’ me her account anymore, not because I have my own, but because I mostly don’t get paid for my writing endeavors. But I don’t allow that to deter me. I have found my way of expression and while I’m not the most gregarious person you’ll ever meet and I may go days without speaking to anyone, not a day passes without me writing down a few lines, paragraphs or a poem. You can call me a liar all you want, I won’t blush or stutter, instead I will mention you in such essays as this one and thank you for helping me make the best decision of my life.

Writing is not a hobby, nor a profession. It’s about how I perceive the world around me and inside me. I don’t know whether I would see things differently if I didn’t write, but I’m certain they would make far less sense to me. Somehow, deep down, I must’ve known that already as a child when I felt the need to come up with a raison d’etre for the coloring book characters.

The Secret Year

2010-02-01T09:26:00.002+01:00

Jennifer R Hubbard: The Secret Year
Publication date: 7th January 2010

Seventeen-year-old Colt has been sneaking out at night to meet Julia, a girl from an upper-class neighborhood unlike his own. They’ve never told anyone else about their relationship: not their family or friends, and especially not Julia’s boyfriend.When Julia dies suddenly, Colt tries to cope with her death while pretending that he never even knew her. He discovers a journal she left behind. But he is not prepared for the truths he discovers about their intense relationship, nor to pay the price for the secrets he’s kept.

I was really looking forward to reading this book. One of the reasons for that is its beautiful cover. It's intriguing, beautiful and hot - just like the book.

I love the stories that are narrated from a boy's point of view so this was another bonus. Also, Colt is such an appealing character that he makes you really want to know what's going on in his mind throughout the novel. And even Julia, who is essentially never really present as an active character, is so well-drawn that it's a joy to read about her.

The complexity of these two characters is one of the strong points of Hubbard's book. As a reader, you never quite know why Julia and Colt started and kept their 'riverside' relationship - and it seems that neither do they. Colt can never be quite sure why Julia is with him or whether she's just a stuck-up bitch or a girl that can't afford to be anything but a stuck-up bitch because of the world she lives in. She's an ambiguous character and she stays that way right till the end, and that's what I really like about this book. Hubbard doesn't try to make Julia look nice and that's what makes Colt and Julia's relationship look real and the characters true and believable.

The same goes for secondary characters, they're all well-developed and true. The plotting is well done with the coexisting past and present stories that emphasize how stuck in the past Colt really is and how he has to realize that Julia's death wasn't his fault before he can go on and really live in the present.

The concept of the book is brilliant, characters are appealing and easy to identify with, and Hubbard's writing style draws the reader's attention to the important issues.

You can also read my reviews at Goodreads.

Leaving Gee's Bend

2010-01-29T15:03:00.004+01:00

Irene Latham: Leaving Gee's Bend
Publication date: 7th January 2010

A young girl sets out to save her sick mother and records her
adventures in quilt pieces.

Ludelphia Bennett may be blind in one eye, but she can still put in a good stitch. Ludelphia sews all the time, especially when things go wrong.

But when Mama goes into labor early and gets deathly ill, it seems like even quilting won’t help. That’s when Ludelphia decides to do something drastic—leave Gee’s Bend for the very first time. Mama needs medicine that can only be found miles away in Camden. But that doesn’t stop Ludelphia. She just puts one foot in front of the other. What ensues is a wonderful, riveting and sometimes dangerous adventure. Ludelphia weathers each challenge in a way that would make her mother proud, and ends up saving the day for her entire town.

Set in 1932 and inspired by the rich quilting history of
Gee’s Bend, Alabama, Leaving Gee’s Bend is a delightful, satisfying story of a young girl facing a brave new world.

This was a touching story told through Ludelphia's unique and authentic voice. I had no previous knowledge of Gee's Bend, but I'm a seamstress too and the quilting attracted me from the beginning. But once I got to know the main character, it was her view of the world surrounding her that charmed me completely. Beautifully written. Ms. Latham uses the Southern vernacular to create a very authentic atmosphere, her descriptions of nature and everyday life are equally convincing. Despite never being to the South, it made me feel like I was there, seeing the characters, places and events. A very good read.

Reading Challenge

2010-01-29T14:45:00.009+01:00

So I decided to sign up for the 2010 debut YA author challenge. I've never done anything like this before and I'm not sure how many books my time will allow me to read, but I hope I can manage 12. Here's my list (I will add and change it a bit in the future as I haven't really checked out all the books yet):

1. Irene Latham: Leaving Gee's Bend
2. Jennifer R. Hubbard: The Secret Year
3. Julie Kagawa: The Iron King
4. Lauren Oliver: Before I Fall

5. Holly Cupala: Tell Me A Secret (22.6.2010)

6. Kristina McBride: The Tension of Opposite
7. Suzanne Young: The Naughty List
8. Anna Jarzab: All Unquiet Things
9. Jandy Nelson: The Sky is Everywhere
10. Stephanie Perkins: Anna and the French Kiss (2.12.2010)
11. Alyssa B. Sheinmel: The Beautiful Between
12. Amy Brecount White: Forget-Her-Nots

Also, if you'd like to join the challenge, go here. You'll get all the additional information and a sign-up post.

Amazon sellection

2010-01-26T19:29:00.003+01:00

While I posted yesterday about my favourite few books from last year you can read on the Amazon blog about the most influential YA writers of the decade. Laurie Halse Anderson, Scott Westerfeld, Stephenie Meyer and John Green are mentioned among others. I think it's a fairly good sellection, each of the authors left their impression on YA literature.

I'm still waiting on my copy of The Secret Year. I'm sure this'll be one of the YA books we'll all talk about in 2010.

Best of 2009

2010-01-25T17:21:00.002+01:00

Last year I read 65 books which is actually 15 more than the year before that. Eight of those were nonfiction, 17 were YA, 5 were sci-fi or fantasy, 5 comic books, 12 were literary fiction. Here are some of my favourites out of those.

First, a YA novel, Two-Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt. The book is teeming with conflicts, tension and UST. I devoured it in a few hours. A girl is dumped by a guy, but then has to go on a car ride across the country with him to get to college before the term starts. Nicely drawn characters and jam-packed with tension.

Second, Jose Saramago's Blindness. This one left me speechless. At first I was a bit dubious because of the style of writing which is something like this without the sentences ever ending and it includes even direct speech without marking it in any way but once you get used to that and delve into the story it completely sucks you in it presents a very scary scenario of everyone going blind similar to the swine flu at the moment but the whole thing refers to our metaphorical blindness the narrative is so compelling and real I often found myself confused when I stopped reading for the day because I had a hard time getting out of it.

Third and fourth, Jim Beaver's Life's That Way and Michael Ondaatje's Divisadero. One is fiction, the other is very much based on (sadly) real life. But both tell a painfully intimate story. Divisadero is my favouirite book by Ondaatje so far, and I certainly hope Jim will write more books (with happier subjects though).