November 2021 – Tyson Adams

Blog Topic, Fun Articles, Reblogged, Video

Why We Keep Retelling the Classics

This month’s It’d Lit! is all about stealing your story ideas from others.

I’ve previously discussed how few plots there are and how certain archetypes trace their origins back as far as we have records for. One example of this is the wandering hero, or knight errant, arriving in town to take on the bad guys before moving off for the next adventure. This is a popular genre – think Jack Reacher – and has its origins at least as far back as the Greek myths and East Asian folklore.

So is this recycling or is it about the formula storytellers use as the basic backbone to hang their narrative off of?

I’d argue the latter. This is especially true of the examples of “inspired by” or “fan-fic” from the video (and elsewhere). The storyteller will have been thinking about that awesome story and what they’d have liked to do differently, or set it in a different location.

For example, the best Die Hard sequels haven’t been in the Die Hard franchise. Instead, they have been Die Hard On a Bus, or Die Hard On a Plane, or Die Hard In the Whitehouse. The fact you probably know exactly which movies those refer to shows how the basic premise being adapted doesn’t cut down on the creativity. Well, mostly.

And even if the recycling isn’t quite as overt as Die Hard On a Boat, all stories are inspired by or are a combination of the stories that came before. The storyteller has to start somewhere. Preferably not with Die Hard On a Train, the sequel to Die Hard On a Boat.

From James Joyce’s Ulysses to Bridget Jones’s Diary, you’ve probably read a book that was just a modern retelling of a well-established story. Which is to say nothing of other forms of media and their own obsessions with retellings.
And despite what your Writing 101 instincts might tell you, this is neither bad nor lazy writing—or even a new concept. Because let’s be honest: sometimes a story is just so dang good, it bears repeating. Sometimes more than once. Sometimes multiple times. I’m looking at you, Jane Austen.
Hosted by Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes, It’s Lit! is a show about our favorite books, genres and why we love to read. It’s Lit has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.

Blog Topic, Book review, Reading

Book review: Sweep of the Blade by Ilona Andrews

Sweep of the Blade by Ilona Andrews
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Nothing like a good bloody wedding.

After successfully stopping a genocide, Maud (Dina’s sister) accepts Lord Arland’s invitation to accompany him to his homeworld. Their relationship is still in its early days and she knows she will have to fight to be accepted. Literally. With swords. But she wants to try. And what better time than when Arland’s house is hosting a rival house’s wedding that may be cover for something else, and species the vampires distrust want to open a trade port.

Jumping straight into Sweep of the Blade after finishing One Fell Sweep took a bit of adjusting. I had been expecting the next Innkeeper Chronicle to be about, as the name might suggest, the innkeeper. Instead, we’re off to follow Dina’s sister.

This wasn’t a bad thing. It was quite interesting to have the series expand outside of Gertrude Hunt and give us a sense of these other worlds the Innkeepers service. And it was enjoyable to read the filled out characters of Maud and Arland.

As with the other instalments, Sweep of the Blade is fast-paced and not overly long. In some regards that is a slight weakness as some plot points are left hanging – hopefully, to be dealt with in a later instalment. But I’ll take past-paced over drawn out and boring any day.

Already reading the next instalment.

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Blog Topic, Book review, Reading

Book review: The Plague by Albert Camus

The Plague by Albert Camus
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Can’t think why this book is currently popular again.

In the town of Oran, Dr Bernard Rieux notices rats are starting to die in their thousands. When his building concierge dies suddenly, Rieux urges the authorities to act on what appears to be the early stages of a plague. Obviously, they listen to him and the book ends there. Or more accurately, the plague takes hold of the town and people start dying in their hundreds. Rieux and his friends try to help the best they can.

I’ve read very little of Camus’ philosophy. His most famous contribution is “There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is (whether to commit) suicide” which is a tad offputting. I’m sure the guy pushing the rock up a hill would agree with me on that.

But after watching a recent video from Carlos Maza, I decided to give The Plague a read.

In many respects, The Plague captures most of Camus’ philosophical arguments in a narrative form. It is also widely acknowledged as a WW2 allegory, specifically around the underground resistance movement against the Nazis. And the reason it is getting a lot of interest currently, aside from its title, is how much of the events of the novel sound painfully familiar.

Not that this novel is prophetic so much as an account of humanity. Which says a lot about how much we suck at learning from our mistakes.

I was roughly halfway through reading The Plague when I found myself reminded of a critique of philosophers. Professor Moeller suggested that analytic philosophers were failed scientists and continental philosophers were failed writers or poets.

Much of The Plague had me thinking of Camus as the failed writer doing philosophy. There’s a dry and detached style to the writing that is at odds with the story being told. And as a philosophical novel, I thought it swung between poignant and pointless at times.

Although, as I said above, I was going in thinking of Camus’ work as a bit offputting. Not to mention, whenever I think of Camus I’m reminded of this comic:
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/180

The Plague is such an optimistic and timely book to read during a global pandemic.

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Blog Topic, Book review, Reading

Book review: One Fell Sweep by Ilona Andrews

One Fell Sweep by Ilona Andrews
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Noxious killer weeds are annoying.

Fresh off of a successful peace summit, Dina DeMille is feeling a little bored. Fortunately, her estranged sister contacts her for urgent help. This then forces her hand in sheltering a hunted species in her inn. Before you know it, Gertrude Hunt is under siege.

I’ve been enjoying this series so much that the only gap between finishing one instalment and starting the next has been down to availability from the library. Sure, my wife owns the series already, but that would mean prying her e-reader out of her hands. And I wasn’t looking for a divorce currently.

Something I’ve noticed with Ilona Andrews’ books is that there is a gradual development of characters and relationships. Many series try to have the next adventure with essentially the same character and relationship dynamics. I’ve picked up other series at random intervals and don’t feel like anything has changed or that I’ve missed anything. Which could be a compliment to Andrews’ writing or it could be a condemnation of the usual book series I read (with the exception of the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs).

At this rate, I’ll have finished the series in a month’s time and moved on to the rest of the Kate Daniels books.

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Blog Topic, Book review, Reading

Book Review: Last Human and Backwards by Grant Naylor

Last Human and Backwards by Doug Naylor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s cold outside, there’s no kind of atmosphere, I’m all alone, more or less.

Last Human and Backwards continues the adventures of the crew of Red Dwarf after the events of Better Than Life. Doug Naylor tells the tale of Lister reuniting with his crew and adventuring into an alternate universe where they are mistaken for versions of themselves accused of crimes. Rob Grant tells the tale of Lister reuniting with the crew only to be stuck in the backward universe.

After Grant Naylor split up and became Doug Naylor and Rob Grant to write their respective third instalments in the Red Dwarf series, interesting things happened. I’m reviewing both books as one because I read both back to back and wanted to compare the two.

Last Human is the better of the two third instalments (4 stars). The adventure is a challenge for everyone and shows how far all the characters have come. While not as humorous as the previous books, it does manage to revel in the absurdity. I especially like (and remember from when I originally read this book 25 years ago) the luck virus and its part in the story.

Superficially, Backwards is the more absurd and humorous premise (2 stars). The multiverse crossovers, Ace Rimmer, and the Agonoids should make for an amazing adventure. But I found the jokes a bit flat and the story felt like a series of set-pieces – which is unsurprising given the previous instalments and that this was based on episodic TV scripts.

The main difference I wanted to discuss was the pig. I can still remember this mean “joke” from when I first read the series in the 90s. The “joke” in question appears in Backwards and it becomes apparent that the pig was actually a woman who had become morbidly obese and depressed as a result of being sexually assaulted as a teen by Cat.

The first time I read Backwards I felt sad for that character. This time I felt that Grant didn’t like his characters and would go as far as to be unnecessarily mean to them for fun and sadistic “laughs”.

This is also true of Rimmer. In Last Human, Rimmer is still the coward but manages to grow and be the character who says “Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast”. Naylor lets him become more than a joke. Whereas in Backwards, Grant rubs in just how terrible Rimmer is and how one decision had irreversibly led him to be the loser we’re meant to laugh at.

As Grant Naylor, I think the rough edges of both writers were smoothed out. Gestalt really is a great term for their partnership. But without Naylor, I think that Grant became mean (his own books seem to paint people as incompetent and dumb, and his stories are very dark).

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Blog Topic, Book review, Reading

Book review: Mission Economy by Mariana Mazzucato

Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism by Mariana Mazzucato
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Mariana: Change for the betterment of all.
CEO: But will I still make a huge bonus?

Mission Economy continues Mariana Mazzucato’s writing on addressing the neo-liberal failures that have seen the importance of government to our economy sidelined. She uses the example of the mission to the moon for how government drives innovation, economic expansion, and aids private industry in direction. And from this, how a new mission could address the problems wrought by neo-liberal/crony capitalism (e.g. climate change, growing inequality).

After having read The Entrepreneurial State and The Value of Everything I was excited to read Mission Economy. But after finishing it, I was left feeling a little underwhelmed.

I think this lack of whelms is from two factors. The first is that this is a continuation of Mazzucato’s previous two books. This isn’t a bad thing but it does feel like another version of the same arguments without much new material. If this had slightly more “meat” to the argument I’d have probably enjoyed it more.

The second reason is the idea of Reform or Revolution? Mazzucato is essentially arguing to reform our current capitalism with better capitalism. But standing in the way of that are all the people who made all the money with the current state of affairs. So how do you do this reform without revolution? Her argument is to have a rallying “mission” to address the big issues, but we have seen that blocked already.

So her argument, whilst not wrong or bad, needed more fleshing out as to how to overcome the blockages. What was going to be the revolution or reform that would do this? And why reform over revolution? The book would have been much stronger for this point.

On a side note, I know the moon mission was the example being used to underline the thesis of the book… but… the Kennedy love and moon example got a bit repetitive and thinly stretched.

Overall, this was a solid argument from Mazzucato and worth reading. Hopefully, we will see a mission to address some problems in the coming months and years with governments leading the way.

Comments while reading:
“The wrong question is: how much money is there and what can we do with it? The right question is: what needs doing and how can we structure budgets to meet those goals?”

This has been a common theme from a lot of more progressive political and economic texts/essays in the last decade or two. And yet, the message still doesn’t get through. Mainly because people still think of the economy as a household budget rather than an investment portfolio.

The revised Kennedy quote as a rallying call to fix current issues is a good one. But it does show how more nebulous issues, like the environment, health, climate change, are harder to set a clear outcome or goal for.

Mazzucato does talk about this a little, but I feel that it doesn’t quite capture how hard goals are easier to defend. “We’re going to beat the Ruskies and put a [man] on the moon first” is an easier target than “We have to all join together and stop burning fossil fuels so that the planet doesn’t warm beyond 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels”. What’s the win with the second idea, is the goal not burning fossil fuels or just not too much, is the warming 1.5 exactly, what were the pre-industrial levels, why is this important, will there be sandwiches?

But I suppose that’s why we’re trying to address climate change, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.

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