Bookish Thoughts

It can be difficult to read someone else's favorite book. Especially if you end up not liking that book. I'd like to be diplomatic and say that I just encountered this book at the wrong time in my life. And maybe that's true. I'm too accustomed to these tropes to feel any suspense or surprise. The book was clearly written for a younger audience. At the same time, I'm tempted to say that this book is just objectively bad. Merlin is an arrogant, foolish boy who makes nonsensical decisions in order to advance the plot. He fucks everything up, but manages to right it all in the end because he's going to be a great wizard and we can't let him actually kill his mother. He gains wisdom and humility far too easily because they are distilled to seven lessons that can be expressed as cheerful platitudes, like "Love is the strongest bond" and "Every life is precious". Worse, the author doesn't trust the reader to remember simple details or m...

The blurb on the front of the book, taken from the New York Times review, claims that this is a book rich in magic. I can't entirely disagree with that. These are the books that, years ago, finally got my brother reading. I grew up surrounded by books. My mom read constantly when I was a child, and so did I. When I was two I got her to teach me the alphabet. When I was four I taught myself to read by memorizing Green Eggs and Ham and matching the words in my head to those on the page. I surprised everyone at my fifth birthday by reading all of my cards by myself. And I never looked back, inhaling book after book. But it took my brother longer to get on that path. Confused by his disinterest in books (it was probably just that he was more interested in video games) my parents bought series after series in an attempt to get him reading. Narnia never interested him, and neither did Redwall. While many kids' love of reading was ignited by Harry Potter , my brothe...

This was my second time through Marion Zimmer Bradley's epic retelling of the King Arthur legend. The first time was over a decade ago, when I was still in high school. I remember really liking the book and wanting to read it again. I also remember punching it at one point because of something Gwenhwyfer did. But mostly I remember a fun fantasy that was a cool twist on the Arthurian legends; the tale is told entirely through the point of view of the female characters. What I manage to forget, somehow, every single time I come back to King Arthur, is that this tale is a tragedy. I think this may be because I usually only listen to the first half of the Camelot soundtrack. The story is the Golden Age of Camelot and all the great, chivalrous deeds that the Knights of the Round Table perform. But it's ultimately about the destruction of that Golden Age. Arthur's rule was too good to last. People are not fundamentally good and desires and loyalties twist into si...