“Riordan’s books prompt an uneasy interrogation of the premise underlying the ‘so long as they’re reading’ side of the debate—at least among those of us who want to share Neil Gaiman’s optimistic view that all reading is good reading, and yet find ourselves by disposition closer to the Tim Parks end of the spectrum, worried that those books on our children’s shelves that offer easy gratification are crowding out the different pleasures that may be offered by less grabby volumes.” In an essay for The New Yorker, Rebecca Mead considers questions about what children should be reading through the lens of the Percy Jackson series.
“The Percy Jackson Problem”
“Heathcliff, it’s me, Cathy, I’ve come home”
“Then, about an hour into the newest version, it struck me: it’s Twilight!…That’s how I would have pitched the film, and the fact that I was thinking of it while watching Heathcliff and Catherine break each other’s hearts was an indication of Arnold’s failure to capture a fraction of Brontë’s genius.” The impossibility of filming Wuthering Heights.
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Sad, Sad Puppies
The finalists for the 2016 Hugo Awards were announced a few days ago, and it looks like the reactionaries may have struck another blow. A group which calls itself “The Sad Puppies” has been stirring up political controversy at the Hugos for a few years now. Founded in 2013 by writer Larry Correia, who was highly critical of the Hugos for favoring what he believed were “academic” works that allegedly promote “left-leaning messages,” the Puppies have since campaigned vigorously to have writers whose ideologies line up with their own make the final ballot.
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Judy Blume on Tumblr
Judy Blume answered questions about life, writing, and her new book, In the Unlikely Event, on Alfred A. Knopf’s Tumblr on Wednesday. In case you haven’t checked it out, The Millions has a Tumblr, too.
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“Characters are Ciphers”
Peter Mendelsund writes for the Paris Review about how we see, or think we see, fictional characters. “Characters are ciphers. … We are ever reviewing and reconsidering our mental portraits of characters in novels: amending them, backtracking to check on them, updating them when new information arises.”
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The Art of Translation
In general, fact-checking isn’t the most glamorous part of a journalist’s career, which is why Michael Erard was surprised to find that a recent fact-checking session for an Al Jazeera article turned out to be among the most interesting conversations of his life. Why? His sources were linguists, and their job was to explain to him the workings of brand-new sign languages.
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This is from a few months ago, and it was just a snobbish now as it was then.
I so agree with Matt and Neil Gaiman, having misspent my youth reading tons and tons of comic books (not graphic novels, but Caspar and Richie Rich and Fantastic 4, in all their flat, cheerful glory) and “abridged classics”, and just generally cheesy mid-century kid’s books now long out of print (much of it woefully un-P,C: “Pale-Face Redskins” was a particular favorite. I blush.) Not to mention “de-classified” textbooks from the 30’s and 40’s that my teacher dad brought home whenever the school board ordered newer ones, also pretty cretinous. And leave us not forget TV and movie novelizations — every single Star Trek and “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and Girl From U.N.C.L.E. we could find. The pleasures of cheap mass-market paperbacks — none of that Caldecott stuff for us!
I could go on and on with our many down-market enthusiasms — how we graduated to gothic novels and regency romances with heaving bodice covers .Even (gasp!) Emily Loring and Harlequin Romances — we were very young — don’t hate me) How I spent every study period of 9th grade in the school library finishing Marjorie Morningstar and Gone with the Wind and some other saggy, baggy stuff of which I loved every silly, melodramatic word.
I thank my folks for sending me to the library unchaperoned and for giving me a quarter for the church white sale where I found “Star Girl” for a nickel and an old Whitman edition of “Eight Cousins” with the lurid technicolor cover for a dime. I thank them for having busy enough lives that obsessing over my reading was not an option for them. I especially thank them for not censoring the first and best years of this readers life, when, as Gaiman points out, everything is new and nothing is hackneyed. Here’s to freedom and reading at will and trusting kids to know their own tastes.