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Myths, Falsehoods, and Wars

I am writing this for the Easter season, because, for me right now, many of the readings are hitting very hard. The prayer that God should take away our hearts of stone and give us natural, human hearts--wow! Even the drowining of Pharaoh's army in the sea seems different this year. Because who is Pharaoh? And what is that reading really saying?

But I began with an essay on World War 2, which I'm posting below.

WW2 and the myth of redemptive violence

As humans, we’re storytellers, and we use stories to guide our actions and form our communities. If we want good and life-giving communities, we must tell good stories.

This is why we must, somehow, get over our obsession with World War 2.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean we should forget World War 2, which—along with its holocausts—is rightly considered the major event of the twentieth century. We do need to remember history. But we also need to question what aspects of history we focus on, and what lessons we are taught.

I’m American. Some of my older relatives and friends were WW2-era veterans, and I honor their courage, loyalty, and sacrifices. It’s also absolutely essential to remember crimes like the Holocaust, the fire-bombings of Dresden and Tokyo, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and so much more. These things must be remembered. They must also be examined so that we can learn from them.

And it did seem, in the period before I was born and even into my childhood, that we were trying to draw the right lessons from the horrors of this war. The war led to the Nuerenberg trials and also to many laws meant to ensure such things never happened again—the Geneva conventions, for example, and the declaration of human rights and more. The principal lesson of WW2 seemed to be how utterly cruel and inhumane we human beings could be to each other, given the right provocations.

But, along with these lessons, we learned several others. First, we learned that the world could be divided into “good guys” and “bad guys”. We Americans and our allies were the good guys. The Nazis, the Italian Fascists, and the Japanese were the bad guys, and had to be fought strenuously and totally defeated.

Which—well, it seems true, doesn’t it? There’s just no doubt that the Nazis did evil, and the Japanese, too, did unspeakable things to the countries they occupied. Both Nazis and Imperial Japanese were following a false story they had learned: that they were the superior human beings and that others—such as Chinese, Jews, and Roma—were inferior creatures worthy of slavery at best and death at worst. These lies led to horrific, unspeakable evil. And that evil did have to be fought.

But here’s the problem. If we are the good guys and the Germans, Japanese, and Italians are the bad guys, doesn’t that make them inferior to us? There’s the trap, you see.

In fact—and this is the major lesson the Holocaust, in particular, should teach us—we are all human beings on this planet together. No group is superior or inferior to another; we are all brothers and sisters. As a Catholic Christian, this is one of my core religious beliefs, but it’s backed by science. The whole concept of race is bad science and false; all human beings have the same origins, if you go back a million years or so, and that’s a blink of an eye in the face of geologic time—or of eternity.

But we humans do like to get together in gangs of various sizes. We do like to see our gang, whatever it is, as good and superior and other gangs as bad and inferior. Looking at the Nazis of the 1940s, or supremacists of any type today, shows us exactly where that type of thinking gets us. And those supremacists do include Zionists, Christian and otherwise. I empathize with Jewish Zionists who are ruled by fear and anger after what their people suffered in the twentieth century. I think they’re wrong, like all who would divide human beings into superior and inferior groups. But I can see why they act as they do. To achieve real peace and real justice, however, we have to live in truth. And that means that we must move away from nationalism and groupthink of all kinds.

There’s more, though. There is the idea that violence—even the utterly horrific violence of war—can be good. It can be redemptive. It can save us, and save the world, if the “good guys” use sufficient violence against the “bad guys” and defeat them thoroughly enough. After all, that’s what we—the good guys—did in Word War II. We defeated Japan and Germany utterly, and forced them to surrender without conditions. Then, so our version of history goes, we rebuilt their countries into prosperous and peaceful democracies. But they had to be shattered before they could be rebuilt.

There are a couple of things to note here. First, Germany had suffered a humiliating defeat already in World War I. Our rebuilding of the country after World War 2 was, in part, based on what we learned from the failed peace after the first World War. Second, even if everything I’ve said above is true—even if Germany and Japan did have to be utterly defeated in order to be rebuilt—that doesn’t justify war in general.

For war is always a crime, the worst crime human beings can commit. It is always a failure. My Church developed a theory of a just war in the Middle Ages, but many are now arguing that no war can ever be just. No war can ever be justified—not if you are truly a follower of the Jesus movement. My dad was one of the World War 2 era veterans I mentioned earlier. During one of the Gulf wars, he said, with great sincerity and sadness, “There’s no justification for war in the New Testament. None.” He was right.

And that’s why, though we must always remember the facts of Word War 2, we must somehow let go of the myth. The myth teaches us that war is just, and that we have a right to do whatever is necessary to our enemies in order to win, because we are the good guys and they are the bad guys. And only violence can defeat evil. This is the myth that has guided my country’s actions for the last seventy years. No matter what we do, we are still the good guys. So we—or our allies—can bomb civilians relentlessly. We can impose sieges. We can destroy entire cities, including priceless historical sites and even schools, pharmaceutical plants, religious buildings and hospitals. We can kill millions through our bombings and sieges—and we remain the good guys. We are judged not by what we do, which is often monstrous, but by who we are.

And that is toxic. That is a lie. It’s a lie we must let go of if we are to live as mature, free, and peaceful humans in a free and peaceful world. We must also somehow repent of the harm we’ve done in so many places, from the Congo to Haiti, from Honduras to Palestine.

May we live in truth and let go of lies.

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Harfoot Life

(Note: quotes are all taken from the Folio Hardcover edition of the Lord of the Rings)

Among other criticisms of TROP. I’ve heard it said the Harfoots are not Hobbits. They’re mean! They have no sense of community! They abandon their own and laugh at their misfortunes! I can certainly see how a casual viewer would think this, but is it true the Harfoots we meet in the show bear no relation to the Hobbits we know and love? And is it true—as I’ve also read (Brad Deveraux’s very thought-provoking essay can be found at this link: https://acoup.blog/2022/12/16/collections-why-rings-of-powers-middle-earth-feels-flat/)--that their nomadic way of life makes no sense and has no similarity to actual nomadic cultures?

In both cases, I would answer no. The Harfoots strike me as extremely probable Hobbit ancestors. And their way of life actually tells us a lot about who they are, what they value, and why.

Let’s start with two vivid expressions of Harfoot culture. The first is the oft-repeated mantra, “Nobody goes off trail, and nobody walks alone.” This is drummed into the heads of Harfoot children, to the extent that they use it as a call and response during one of their major festivals. What does it mean, though, and how does it play out in the show?

Chidlren chant during Harfoot celebration

We see that Harfoots disguise themselves and stay away from other peoples. They also migrate according to the seasons, coming to various places of bounty—abandoned farmlands, a forest full of mushrooms, an orchard—when the natural resources there are most available to them. In addition, they hunt for small game—frogs, fish, snails—and keep birds and rabbits, presumably for meat, eggs, and hair for yarn. We don’t see any wheelwrights, carpenters, or clothmakers, but we do see skillful use of natural materials—reeds, leaves, bark, etc.—to make disguises. And the existence of the wheels, which are treasured possessions, argues for the existence of wheelwrights, etc.

So who are the Harfoots? A clannish small people, good observers of the natural world, whose main goal in life, other than staying together and staying fed, seems to be avoiding notice. Their special skill is vanishing. In this, they are similar to their Hobbit descendants; in his prologue, Tolkien says, “They possessed from the first the art of disappearing swiftly and silently (prologue, page 15 of FOTR)

But why is it so important for the Harfoots to avoid notice?

This brings me to the other vivid—and beautiful—expression of Harfoot culture: Poppy’s song. If we listen carefully, we learn exactly why Harfoot life is governed by fear of discovery. They are survivors of a cataclysm, possibly a war. Here is a reddit link to the full text, which I’m quoting below: https://www.reddit.com/r/LOTR_on_Prime/comments/xm2cxk/full_lyrics_to_poppys_song/

The sun is fast falling beneath trees of stone,

The light in the tower no longer my home,

Past eyes of pale fire, black sand for my bed,

I trade all I’ve known for the unknown ahead.

Call to me, call to me, lands far away,

For I must now wander this wandering day.

Away I must wander this wandering day.

Of drink I have little and food I have less,

My strength tells me no but the path demands yes,

My legs are so short and the way is so long,

I’ve no rest nor comfort, no comfort but song.

Sing to me, sing to me, lands far away,

Oh, rise up and guide me this wandering day.

Please promise to find me this wandering day.

At last comes their answer through cold and through frost,

That not all who wonder or wander are lost,

No matter the sorrow, no matter the cost,

That not all that wonder or wander are lost.

What do we learn from this? As the redditor mentions, many things are ambiguous. But we do learn that, in the past, the Harfoot people were forced to wander. We don’t know what the tower is, nor where those black sands are, but there is a strong hint here not only of disaster, but also, perhaps, of war. If that’s true, it explains much about them. It’s reasonable that secrecy, and the survival of the group, would be high values for the Harfoots.

It's also clear that they were once settled—they weren’t always wanderers. So it’s very possible that some of their artifacts, including their wheels and their carts, are generations old. Certainly, they’re good at repurposing and reusing what little they have. But this may explain why we don’t actually see them forging, making wheels, weaving cloth, and so on. They may rely on handing down, foraging, and mending what they can get.

This brings me to Harfoot economy. It’s absolutely true, as Brad says in his essay, that modern, human nomads rely to some degree on their contacts with settled people. The Van Gujjar, in Michael Benanav’s excellent book Himalaya Bound, are a good example. The people normally keep to themselves, but they trade milk and cheese, and sell buffalo calves, to settled people in order to buy what they themselves can’t produce.

But, in another way, the seminomadic Van Gujjar are quite similar to the Harfoots. They have intimate knowledge of the natural world, and they move to take the best advantage of resources. Like many nomads, they are pastoralists. They stay in the jungle during the winter, when leaves and vegetation are available for their animals. In summer, they move to the slopes of the Himalayas, where their animals can graze.

The Harfoots, as we see, do likewise. They have a path they follow each year, that leads them to water and to food in season. What strikes Brad as unrealistic is that they would stay completely hidden as they travel, and never have any contact with the outside world. But is this really so unrealistic?

There may be other Harfoot clans that live differently. We don’t know; we only see this one group. And it’s a small group, consisting of probably no more than a dozen families. A small group of little people who are gifted at disguises and at vanishing into the landscape. Gathering and preparing food seems to take up much of their time, and we see them take advantage of various resources—they eat fish, snails, frogs, mushrooms, berries, and apples. They clearly gather other greens or herbs, because they prepare tea of some sort as well, and it wouldn’t be surprising (though we don’t see it) if they gleaned grain and wool from nearby fields as they passed by. And they actually do have livestock; we see chickens and rabbits. This seems like a workable economy to me. In fact, the Harfoots as depicted in TROP bear some resemblance to “fairies” of European legend—people leave food out for the fairies in return for labor, or a blessing, or simply in order to keep safe. The fear the human hunter expresses at the Harfoots hints at this sort of exchange—though, to be fair, we don’t see it. But it isn’t impossible.

Nobody leaves the trail because the trail leads the people to the food and water they need, while keeping them safe from big folk who might be a danger to them. As to walking alone—

Well, this brings me to the other criticism people have of the Harfoots. They just abandon their friends when those friends can’t keep up, and then they laugh at their misfortune. The hobbits aren’t mean!

Aren’t they, though? And are the Harfoots really so cruel? When we actually see someone (the elder Sadoc, beautifully played by Lenny Henry) leave the trail, it doesn’t seem cruel at all. (Note: this image of Sadoc is from the Tolkien gateway)
His companions are truly grieved for him, and he, with the wisdom of an elder, accepts the inevitable. He’s been gravely wounded and cannot live. His last words are of hope and beauty: he will sit awhile and watch the sun rise. All his companions can do for him is what they promise to do in the memorial ceremony we’ve seen earlier. “We walk with you,” they say. They remember their comrades and the circumstances of their deaths, knowing that someday, every one of them will leave the trail, one way or another. The trail is life, and the Harfoots are not immortal. This doesn’t strike me as cruel or inhumane. It’s harsh, but the Harfoots lead a harsh life. All the same, it’s not devoid of love.

As to the insistence the Harfoots are not hobbits, they’re not. At least, not yet. But I think the showrunners have made a quite reasonable guess as to where some of the Hobbits may have come from. We do know they were wanderers, coming over the Misty Mountains and eventually settling in Bree, and then the Shire. As Tolkien explains, the Harfoots were the first to head West, and “Their most ancient legends hardly looked further back than their wandering days.” (page 17, prologue) We also know most Hobbits are deeply conservative and dislike adventures. “Nobody goes off trail!”. Those who do “go off trail” aren’t considered quite respectable. “… old Bilbo was cracked, and Frodo’s cracking,” says Ted Sandyman. (FOTR page 62) We may not like this—we may not like Ted Sandyman—but, in The Hobbit, Tolkien makes it quite clear his attitude is more common among hobbits than we might like. When introducing Bilbo and his family, Tolkien emphasizes their respectability: “The Bagginses had lived in the neighborhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable…because they never had adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him.” (The Hobbit, Folio Hardcover, pages 11-12.) It’s quite clear most hobbits don’t go off trail, and those who do are looked down on.

As to meanness, Malva is worse, initially, than Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. Malva wants to take away the Brandyfoots’ wagon wheels, while Lobelia merely wants to take Bag End away from Bilbo, and then Frodo. Both women are out to deprive others of their homes, but in Malva’s case, that might well be a death sentence. In Lobelia’s, she merely wants to bring a social ‘death” to her cousins. However, both the Harfoot woman and the Hobbit woman change. Malva becomes the stranger’s champion after he saves her life, while Lobelia is one of the few Hobbits who stands up to Sharkey and his men. And she is reconciled to Frodo at the end of the story and willingly gives Bad End—which he’d sold to her—back to him.

There’s more. Hobbits love food, and eat five meals a day when they can get them. But, as Gandalf says, they can endure privation much better than anyone would expect. “..ease and peace had left this people still curiously tough. They were, if it came to it, difficult to daunt or kill; and they were, perhaps, so unwearyingly fond of good things not least because they could, when put to it, do without them, and could survive rough handling by grief, foe, or weather in a way that astonished those who did not know them well. (page 20, prologue)

They are still foragers, as well as farmers, with extensive knowledge of herbs (they introduced the world to pipe-weed) and desperately fond of mushrooms. Their Harfoot ancestors are shown to have knowledge of herbs and mushrooms.

Hobbits in the Third Age of Middle Earth, though settled and secure, are extremely good at hitting targets. “If any hobbit stooped for a stone it was well to get quickly under cover, as all trespassing beasts knew very well.” (page 20, prologue) We see this is a valuable skill for the Harfoots, too.

“Nobody walks alone.” As I said above, Hobbits are deeply conservative (in the true sense of the word—I’m not talking about politics!) They know their local geography intimately, know how to take advantage of its resources, and they know their family histories. Most Hobbits aren’t literate, or are barely so, but all of them know who is related to whom, and how, and why. As Tolkien says, “All hobbits were, in any case, clannish and reckoned up their relationships with great care.” (page 22, prologue) In their recitation of the dead, Harfoots are starting to compile a similar type of knowledge.

Harfoots aren’t hobbits, some critics of the show say. No, they aren’t. Not yet. But for all the reasons I’ve given above, they strike me as extremely probable Hobbit ancestors. Speaking of ancestors, I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if some of Nori Brandyfoot’s descendants became Brandybucks, or even Tooks!

What do you think?

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Ship and Stone: Galadriel's Moral Journey in Rings of Power

I'm simply throwing up the link here--it should be live on my ancient livejournal as well as on my author page. Comments welcome here or in either of those places!

https://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/114136.html

http://mjohnsonstories.net/book-reviews-and-other-thou/ship-and-stone-galadriels.html

Current Mood: accomplished

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Revisions!

So I'm still at it! Still revising the perpetual SF novel, as a result of another R&R from another small press. And--

It's so much fun! Really, I love this book with all my heart partly because it's been such a journey of discovery for me. I never imagined I would love editing so much; I always preferred the dreamlike state of drafting. But fine-tuning this book is just a blast so far. It's so great seeing scenes come into focus with small cuts or changes in phrasing. I've managed to cut close to 1.3 K words from the manuscript so far and, as far as I can tell, it's helped it. I HAVE added a couple of scenes as well, and there's another scene--a flashback--to be added to the latter half of the story. That's all good. However--

I am trying to correct the position of major plot points as I edit. It was my hope that, by cutting extraneous words and scenes, I'd move the first, second and third turnings where they ought to be (before 1/4 of the way through, before and just slightly after the halfway point). And--it's not happening. You see, as the book itself gets shorter, those percentages don't move. My first turning is still just under 26 percent of the way through, and the second sits at 51 percent.

This is why, in order to force major plot points into position, authors may rely on flashbacks.

As my faithful readers know, I'm averse to flashbacks for this story. I do have a couple already, and as I said, I'll add at least one more. But, in general, I think readers need to experience this world in real time. Else they'll get utterly lost. So I'm kind of stuck.

But here's what I think: What matters more than some arbitrary number is the flow of the story, and its clarity. If I improve those things--and i think I have--it won't matter so much if a plot point happens a few pages after its "supposed to". At least, that's my hope. I'm trying to make sure every word and every scene carries the story forward. If I do that, I really think I'll be okay--if not for this small press, then hopefully for another.

Wish me luck!

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Reviews! (Thoughts on

It's here! It's here! I read it! And it's every bit as good as I hoped and expected it to be.

"It", of course, is Megan Whalen Turner's series finale, Return of the Thief. I hope this will be a link to my Goodreads review. www.goodreads.com/book/show/11503920-return-of-the-thief

Just a couple of things to add that I forgot to include in that review:
1. Megan's self-insert! At least, I'm pretty sure she gave herself a walk-on. Those who've read the book, what do you think?
2. Ohmygosh, that direct quotation from Henry V! Very appropriate, and very, very clever.

As I said on Goodreads, I could envision a reader starting with this final book and liking it a lot, but you'd gain so much if you read the previous books first. In fact, I think I'm going to reread them all in order before tackling Return of the Thief a second time. And all of Megan Whalen Turner's books need to be read twice, at least.

Part Two: Avatar: the Last Airbender

The short version here is: R.J., you were right. This is a terrific show.
The slightly longer one is: Prince Zuko, you have given me a logline for querying my book. Here it is: Prince Zuko meets Katniss Everdeen when 16-year-old Kiril risks family, life, and honor to save his little half-brother from slavery.

The characters differ in some fundamental ways, obviously, and so do their stories. But the similarities are actually startling to me. Here we go:

Both boys are sixteen. Both are expert swordsmen. Both are burdened by the expectation they will head their families (that's a much bigger burden for the Prince because, as he himself says, his family is seriously messed up.) And both betray/deeply disappoint family members who are dear to them. Finally, both boys are serious--neither has an especially strong sense of humor.

Kiril is a farmer, and a steady, thoughtful person. He does have flashes of Zuko's temper and pride, but these are not as much of a temptation to him as they are to the other boy. And Zuko's betrayals have very different motives than Kiril's. He has actually served, and done, evil, in trying to please his genocidal father and regain his honor. Kiril, on the other hand, is driven by the desire to save a child's life.

So their arcs are really quite different, in spite of the similarities above. I agree with Mark (google "Mark watches Avatar"!) that Zuko has possibly the best, and best-written, redemption arc I've ever seen.

But enough on this compare and contrast! Back to Avatar! Because Zuko isn't the only character with a redemption arc. Uncle Iroh is absolutely the best. And he, too, changes from a warrior serving a genocidal master to a man of true peace. Then there are the other kids. Aang, the avatar, is a genuinely sweet, open child. He's delightful. Katara is a strong and admirable young woman, and her brother grew on me. I ended up liking him a lot--he's funny, loyal, and smart, but still a kid, and sometimes more than a little goofy.

I really enjoyed hanging out with these characters over three months. I loved the writing of the show, the beautiful colors the animators used, the moral questions the show dealt with so thoughtfully, and the heart and humor. Also, in spite of some tragedies, the show is hopeful. Good can prevail; people can change for the better and work with each other to create a better world. How we need that message right now.

Fantastic Natural History, Part 2: Plants!

…”Or there maybe ‘tis cloudless night/and swaying beeches bear/the Elven-stars as jewels bright/amid their branching hair” (Sam’’s song, from The Return of the King, page 194 Hardcover Folio edition)

A. What sort of trees are Mallorns?

You can find the rest at my livejournal, here? https://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/111915.html

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Fantastic Natural History, part 1

This is a crosspost from my livejournal. Here is the link:

https://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/111475.html

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politics,
real life

The Merchants of Death, part 2

A quick quiz: What do Ahed Tamini and Emma Gonzalez have in common?

I am not saying anything new in this post. Martin Luther King, Jr., said it long before I was capable of thinking such things, and so did Thomas Merton, and so, I am sure, did many other good and wise men and women. But it bears repeating.

To get back to my original question, what do Emma Gonzalez and Ahed Tamini have in common? Not that they are teenage young women in the news; not that both are being attacked by right-wingers; not even that both, in their different ways, are fighting for justice. What, exactly, are these girls fighting?

You might say: Ms. Gonzalez is fighting for gun control and Ms. Tamini is fighting the Israeli occupation. Fair enough. But look a little deeper.

I’m not sure how he’d feel about being quoted, but my father, a WWII vet, once said ,“There is no excuse for war in the New Testament. None.” He also said we had to get away from the wartime economy.

When you look at the horrors happening right now in the Middle East, in Gaza, in Yemen, and in so many other places, what do they have in common? To be blunt, they support the wartime economy. Just like the militarization of our police; just like the prison industrial complex, the massive amounts of bloodshed in the Middle East make profit for the merchants of death.

Ours is still a wartime economy. In some ways, I truly believe we are still fighting WWII. And our leaders would not know what to do with themselves if there were no enemy they could demonize. For some of them, that enemy is Russia. For others, it’s brown-skinned people, particularly Mexicans and Muslims. For some, it’s both of these.

The Palestinians, it’s been said, are lab rats for the military industrial complex. The billions of dollars we give to Israel every year go mostly for armaments. Those weapons are used against the Palestinians. Arms merchants can then sell more of these weapons, claiming they are battle-tested.

This must stop. The sooner we stop it, the better. The bloodshed going on right now has nothing to do with justice. It has nothing to do with self-defense. It has everything to do with power-grabbing, greed, racism, and fear.

Just imagine what the world could be like if we actually beat our swords into plowshares and spent our treasure on peace rather than war!

I am cheering on Ms. Gonzalez with all my heart. Her classmates, too, and Ms. Tamini and all the people of Gaza, Bilin, Nilin and other places where the indigenous Palestinians are protesting peacefully. We do not need more occupation. We do not need more weapons of war. We need food, clean soil, clean air and water, and to give our children a chance at a better future. Think how much skill and technological innovation our horrible drone wars have required! If we can put that kind of energy into peace, what might we achieve? Let’s starve the merchants of death and feed the children!

Current Mood: sad

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A Poem: Good Friday (for the people of Gaza)

That woman who fell,

Cut down

Clutching the flag

Of the land she loved--

She fell like a flower,

Cut down like the grass.

Remember her.

Remember,

The grass dies.

It will rise again.

She will rise again.

(Written during the Easter vigil, Mary Johnson)

Current Mood: thoughtful

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Damsels, Crones, and Heroines: a review of Disney's Wrinkle in Time

On Damsels, Crones, and Heroines—a review of A Wrinkle in Time

I was apprehensive about the new movie; I’ve loved the book almost my entire life, and, when I saw the trailers, there was almost nothing I recognized. Still, I was bound to see it. At the very least, it seemed to be well cast and visually interesting.

It was both those things. The little girl who played Meg could hardly have been better, and the boys were good, too. The little fellow who played Charles Wallace was a charmer! And there was a bit more of the book in the movie plot than I’d expected. Still, the movie is not the book. I’m not sure I could even call it an interpretation of the book. As fine as the young actors are, as good as the effects are, the story was altered too much.

I could try to compare and contrast book and movie, point for point, as has been done for the earlier movie, But I’m not sure I could; I’ve only seen the movie once. Instead, I’m going to focus on three key words and show how they are changed in the film. The words are damsel, crone, and heroine. I’ll then take a look at the spirituality of book and movie through the lenses of these words. (Yes, I know. Words don’t have lenses. But damsels, crones, and heroines do.)

Damsel? I can almost hear you asking. You don’t mean Meg, do you? She’s not a damsel!

Indeed she’s not! A Wrinkle in Time, the book, is refreshingly damsel-free. Book Meg is young, uncertain, prickly, and vulnerable. She wails, cries, lashes out, and says self-deprecating things about her looks and abilities. But she’s also a fighter. That’s one of the first things we learn about her. She beats up an older boy who’s made fun of her little brother. In addition, she’s smart, loyal, and brave.

Storm Reid got these qualities of Meg’s across brilliantly in the movie, in spite of the way her spiritual journey is curtailed (more on this later). But there is a damsel in the film. His name is Calvin O’Keefe.

In the book, Calvin is 14, an excellent student, a star athlete, and a gentle, self-aware soul. Mrs. Who does say of him (as she does in the film) that he wasn’t her idea, but she thinks he’s a good one. Though not as brilliant as Meg and Charles Wallace, Calvin’s also gifted, and the Mrs. W strengthen his particular gift. That gift is the ability to communicate.

Interestingly, in the theater behind us when we saw the movie on opening day were three older ladies who had never read the book. One of them was a teacher of the deaf. They all said they thought the pacing of the film was off, and that it could have spent more time on certain themes it brought up, such as communication! So right! It could.

Those women were thinking of the idea of communicating to the flowers—a scene that is nowhere in the book. In the book, as we fans know, Dr. Alex Murry is imprisoned by the Darkness in a transparent pillar. He can’t see out, but the children can see in. Meg manages to rescue her father by using Mrs. Who’s spectacles, which let her rearrange matter. But Calvin also tries to communicate with Dr. Murry. A little later, he almost succeeds in reaching little Charles Wallace, who has voluntarily gone into IT, and he quotes Shakespeare while he does. The text Calvin quotes is Prospero’s speech to Ariel in The Tempest, where the magician reminds the spirit how it was trapped in a cloven pine. Finally, Calvin’s the one who comes closest to explaining the Mrs W to the inhabitants of Ixchel.

Calvin’s role in the movie could hardly be more different. There is a cloven pine—literally--but it’s not a prison Calvin tries to free people from. Instead, it’s a means for Meg to save Calvin. The children huddle into the tree and let a maelstrom hurl them over some sort of wall. Needless to say, this scene is nowhere in the book.

Also absent from the book is the scene when Calvin falls off Mrs Whatsit’s back on the planet Uriel. (To be fair, the Darkness flings him off, but still.) Mrs Who has to rouse the flowers to rescue him. In both these scenes, Calvin is a damsel. He is there simply to be rescued, and that’s his only function in the plot of the movie.

Now to that ambiguous word, crone. It usually denotes a witch, and Mrs Which takes dry pleasure in appearing as a stereotypical witch. Needless to say, she doesn’t do so in the movie. In the book, the two younger beings, Mrs Who and Mrs Whatsit, basically dress like bag ladies. And, to the children, they look old. In fact, they are. Being former stars, they are billions of years old, but Mrs Whatsit is many orders of magnitude younger than Mrs Which. Still, when she manifests as a human being, she is grey-haired and wrinkled.

These very ordinary-looking old ladies have been replaced, in the movie, by attractive and glamourously dressed women. In the book, Meg realizes what the Mrs W look like has nothing to do with what they truly are. This insight is weakened in the movie. Also, Oprah, the oldest of the Mrs W in the film, is still only in her 60s. That’s hardly elderly in modern America. I would have liked to see some respect given to old age and the wisdom that can come with it. I would have liked to see the Mrs W played by old women. Basically, there are no crones in the movie. To me, that’s a loss.

Meg’s heroine’s journey has been altered, as well. I was heartbroken that the scenes on Ixchel were left out. Dr. Murry, desperately fleeing IT, lands there with the two older children. They’ve had to leave Charles Wallace behind in the clutches of IT. Meg has been injured by the Darkness, which is bitterly cold, but the people of Ixchel come to her aid. These people are blind. They are also frightening-looking to the traumatized humans, but are gentle, generous, and wise souls.

It’s on Ixchel that Meg expresses her rage and disappointment that her father, the adult and the scientist, is helpless to put things right. It’s on Ixchel that she then apologizes to him—as he does to her—and states her understanding of what she must do. She must go back to the darkened planet, Camazotz, alone. And she does it.

I’ve said before that there is nothing in the new movie even half as terrifying and inspirational as Meg’s long, lonely walk to IT. Here, we see the little girl display a quality I’ve written about before as the height of courage. It’s integrity. She understands what she’s doing, and why she’s doing it. She’s terrified, but she doesn’t let her fear stop her. Body, mind, heart and soul are united in her actions.

And, before she goes, the Mrs. W give her gifts. Mrs Whatsit gives her her love; Mrs Who the beautiful quote from Corinthians (which I would have liked to have heard in its entirety, but which was left out), and Mrs Which tells the child she has something the apparently all-powerful IT doesn’t’ have, and that thing is her only weapon.

Why couldn’t the filmmakers have left this in? Instead, we basically see Meg’s emotions rewarded. She breaks away from her father by herself. She never has to apologize to him, nor come to the difficult, adult understanding that grown-ups can’t always save the children they love and don’t always have the answers, however much they may wish they did. All she has to do, it seems, is be herself.

Which—well, in a way, that’s in the book, too. But the Disney version privileges impulse and emotion over integrity. And it’s a loss.

There is much more that I could say about the movie. There were some lovely things in it, and some ideas from the book, but in the end, I really don’t think it told the same story. I’ve tried to explain why. As always, comments and critiques are welcome.

Current Mood: accomplished

Entry tags:

original fiction

Another Short Story!

I responded to the 'future" prompt at Sick Lit Magazine, and Kelly accepted my story! You can read it here:

https://sicklitmagazine.com/2018/01/12/among-the-stars-by-mary-johnson/

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The Merchants of Death (thoughts after the Horn Book Symposium)

So, we are just back from the Horn Book Awards at Simmons college. As always, it was an inspirational and energizing event, with a lot of wonderful writers there. I met Richard Peck again! And the theme, like last year’s, was very relevant. It was resistance.

The winner of the award for teens was Angela Thomas, author of The Hate U Give. This is a book you need to read carefully, without skimming and without skipping around. When I first began reading, I was doing both those things. And it seemed too polemical, too much a retelling of current events. When I read more slowly, though, I really appreciated the story, the characters, and the craft Thomas uses in bringing them into a whole. It’s pretty devastating, actually, but not without hope.

Since she is a woman of color, Angie manages to do some things here that a white author could not. The boy who dies, Khalil, is by no means a bad kid. But he makes mistakes. He gets caught up in gang activity, though he doesn’t want to and is not a member. He is surly and uncooperative when the police pull him over. Nevertheless, it’s quite clear that he and his friend Starr, the main character, are unarmed children who pose no threat to anyone. Khalil dies anyway.

That is not a spoiler, since it’s been one of the selling points of the book that the main character witnesses a police shooting. What follows might be.

There is a scene later on when the police roll through Starr’s neighborhood in a tank. A tank! When I was a girl Starr’s age, such a scene would have been unthinkable. Today, sadly, scenes like this have actually occurred, especially in minority and immigrant communities. It’s all part and parcel of the militarization of our police force. And—

I hope every adult who discusses this book with teens will ask why? Why are our police being taught to treat civilians as the enemy? Why are they going abroad to learn crowd control techniques from occupying armies? Why are they using military riot gear? Aren’t the police our fellow citizens?

Some might be tempted to answer: because those minorities are so violent and dangerous. So the police are scared. If that’s your answer, please rethink it.

The violence police are carrying out against civilians is criminal, to my mind. Whenever there’s a crime, in classic detective novels, the detective asks a single question. Cui Bono? Who benefits?

Well, who does benefit? The minority citizens who get terrorized and killed certainly do not. I’d argue the police don’t, either. They are put in an adversarial role when they should be in the role of helpers and servants. But there is one group who benefits greatly from this nonsense. A former president warned us against these people more than fifty years ago. He said,
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

He then added, “Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.”

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his final speech to the nation, January 1961. You can find the full text of the speech here:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/eisenhower001.asp

It seems to me that what president Eisenhower feared has come to pass. We are living in a state of perpetual war; both war abroad and war against our own citizens. The arms makers and arms dealers make millions by selling weapons to the police. It’s to their benefit to keep doing so. The more they can make civilians seem like “the enemy”, the more weapons they can sell. The more the police lose sight of their actual mission; the more they see themselves as soldiers in an undeclared war, the happier these death merchants will be.

We are walking over a cliff, and it really seems to me that most of us don’t see it. Oh, we see the effects. The tanks rolling through working-class neighborhoods, the police in riot gear, the young men shot, the guns everywhere, the fear on both sides. We see the racism and ignorance—great evils, both, for sure. But we don’t see the greed. If we could deal with that directly; if we could stop the arms merchants in their tracks, we would be far better off. Oh, the evils of ignorance and racism would still have to be fought. Always, and hard. But we would not have to mourn so many deaths. We would have a chance to look at each other and talk to each other, and maybe the fear would lessen.

So let’s, please, try to deal with this structural evil. Let’s halt the merchants of death. We must, at the same time, try to deal with other structural evils, such as racism and poverty. But let’s tackle the arms merchants first. They are in charge of our world right now. They have taken the White House and have a stooge installed there. If we can stop them, we can start to make our country, and our world, a better, safer, and more loving place for all the Starrs and all the Khalils out there. Please. Let’s do it.

Entry tags:

literature,
reading

A few of the best fantasy and SF novels you (probably) haven't read

This came to mind because I’m rereading one of them right now, and it’s amazing. I am astonished that it didn’t get lots of awards and that it doesn’t have (so far as I know) legions of passionate fans. Please correct me if I’m wrong; I’m certainly one of them!

So here it is: My number 1

The Gift Moves, by Steve Lyon. “Soft” Science Fiction

In the southeastern part of what used to be the United States, a young girl called Path Down the Mountain is entering the second stage of her life. She is leaving her family and going to the Banks to become a weaver’s hand. Here is her leavetaking. Path is visiting the two women who taught her to weave.

I opened my hand to give away my last gift, the shuttle they had made for me
two years ago when I came to live with them. It was the last piece of the life I
knew, and I put it in Blue Leaf’s hand. “The gift moves,” I said, somehow letting out the words and keeping in the tears.
“It moves,” she replied. (The Gift Moves, hardcover, page 3)

cover, The Gift Moves

Path is living in a strange and lovely world where batteries grow on trees, buses are made of termite colonies, and cats can talk. This is no dystopia, thank heavens, but it’s no utopia, either. Instead, it’s a believable society with its own strengths and weaknesses. In this future world, much that is true and beautiful has been lost – for example, Path has no idea what a “chapel” is. But much that is true and beautiful has been retained. The story takes place over the course of a month, while Path settles into her new life with her stern teacher, Heron, and while the people of the Banks prepare for the midsummer festival and the turning of the year. This is a story about love and loss, about how hurts get handed down in families (both natural and adoptive) and how they are overcome, and, most of all, about two young people struggling to find their own place in their world. Those young people are Path and Bird Speaks, a boy her age who becomes interested in her.

If you’re intrigued by alternate societies and like stories about real people, you should love this book.
( Read more... )

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More on "Wrinkle"-

So, after writing the earlier blog posts, I came across this comparison on youtube:

It's extraordinary how alike they are. In particular, it's extraordinary how, whenever the old movie deviated from the book, the new trailer seems to deviate in the same way. I get the sense, from watching this short video, that Ava DuVernay may be remaking a movie rather than filming a book. This would explain the major deviations from the book. (And I don't mean the race of the characters! I mean the setting, the lack of Sandy and Dennys, the scenes that seem like earthquakes, and so on.)

But I might be wrong. After all, the new "Jungle Book" could also be compared to the old movie point for point. But the makers had clearly read the book and paid intelligent tribute to it, as I said in an earlier post. They ended up making a unique and excellent movie. Let's hope the same with be true of the new "Wrinkle in Time".

Still, I'm more apprehensive now. I can't help but be apprehensive, since I love the book so much! We shall see.

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Meg, Laura, and Sarah-- Heroines' journeys.

I posted this on live journal, actually, because I couldn't remember my login for Dreamwidth!

Here is the link: http://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/107389.html

I will try to pretty it up later--rushing to work now. Enjoy! Comments welcome either here or there.

Current Mood: accomplished

Entry tags:

New story!

I had a story accepted for publication by Sick Lit Magazine. It came out today! Here is the link:

https://sicklitmagazine.com/2017/05/05/sorrow-by-mary-johnson/

Current Mood: thoughtful

some thoughts on science and education

So, I went to the local climate march today. Hundreds of people were there! (Pics will follow when I edit this post; I'm writing this quickly) As with the other protest marches I've attended, there was a very good feeling of community and peace. But-

I began conversing with a young woman next to me. She said her dad (I think it was her dad) was a Fox news watcher and basically believed all the propaganda; in particular, he believed science was no truer than religion. In other words, to him, science wasn't about facts. It was mere opinion.

I'm still tired from the bug I'm fighting and the words didn't come to me then. I did manage to say (what I truly believe) that it's shocking to me that so many of my fellow citizens are so poorly educated. But here's the thing:

This young woman's dad wasn't entirely wrong. It is true that many people who promote science also promote materialism. And materialism isn't a fact; it's a belief. But science is NOT the same as materialism. True science is a way of examining the natural world to discover facts about it. You may have a very active spiritual life and be a scientist (Our Pope is a good example), or you may be a die-hard materialist and have no idea of the scientific method. Of course, all scientists are focused only on the physical world while doing science. Naturally! That's what science is for; it's a means of discovery, a quest for truths about the physical world.

What Fox News, and other such "sources", have done is to confuse the scientific method with materialism. This is wrong and dangerous, and leads to confusions such as this young woman's father had. Such confusions are all too common in America today.

BTW, our local climate march was led by several groups of nuns. One young woman was carrying a poster illustrating "Laudato Si", the Pope's beautiful call for care of the earth. And there were pro-science signs EVERYWHERE! Catholic groups, Jewish groups, hard-left groups--everyone was carrying them.

Because, as I said above, science is true.

Current Mood: hopeful

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On adaptations

This photo of Goshen is courtesy of TripAdvisor.

So they are again trying to film one of my childhood favorites, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Honestly, it’s a book I still love, and I am filled with trepidation. Oh, I’ll go see it when it comes out next year. I’m almost certain to, unless it’s completely panned. But the Canadian TV movie from ten or fifteen years ago was a very mixed bag, and I’m very much afraid this version will be, too.

Why? I admit I was a little startled when I read that the director insisted on having primarily people of color in the cast. And then I thought about it. It does change the story, which is set in rural New England in the early 1960s. African Americans really didn’t live in small New England farming villages after WWII. They did before the war, and the loss of this population is one of many American tragedies and injustices. But_

One of the points of the story, and, indeed, of the series, is that Meg’s family are outsiders. Making Kate Murry of African descent, and her children mixed race, is a good way of emphasizing this. And these are beautiful children! If they can act the parts and get the characters across, it doesn’t matter in the least that they don’t look like the characters in the book.

But I’m disappointed that the filmmakers didn’t bother to film in the book’s actual setting. To me, one of the great pleasures of Madeleine L’Engle’s books is the love and care with which she evokes the New England landscape. A Wrinkle in Time begins, very specifically, in northwestern Connecticut in early autumn. Madeleine L’Engle lived in Goshen. The early scenes in Camazotz are meant to look like on of the local mill towns. This—the foothills of the Berkshires, and a part of the Appalachian chain—is a lovely landscape. It’s not spectacular or dramatic, but it is quietly, subtly beautiful. I’m sorry they didn’t see fit to film the book where it was set.( Read more... )

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Another Telakan Recipe (cross-posted from my author blog)

I know; it’s been a long time, but I’m finally back, and with a new, very green recipe just in time for St. Patrick’s day! This will serve four aunties for a breakfast dish, or eight reluctant small boys. It’s quick and very simple if you can find frozen broccoli rabe.

( Read more... )

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The Culture of Death, Part 3-

Sorry! It's another political post. As I say below, I was inspired to write this by our readings at Mass these past two weeks. They were almost scarily relevant.

Before our current president (I suppose we must call him that) took the oath of office, I had a brief conversation with a friend. “Young women I know are in tears,” she said to me. “I can’t understand it. I think it has to get worse before it gets better.” At the time, I was rather shocked and startled, but I’m starting to agree with her.

It’s not that Trump isn’t awful. He is. He is even worse than I imagined he would be, and the appearance of Swastikas on public property is absolutely chilling. All the bullies, racists, and neo Nazis seem to have been greatly encouraged by recent events. And yet- ( Read more... )