12 Years a Slave- A Review of Patsy, Lupita Nyong'o, and the Academy Awards

Now, I really don't do reviews on movies for the most part; movies are not my thing, I can't express fully what they mean the way a true movie critic would. The only part that I can talk about with any real certainty is writing. That's why I'm writing about 12 Years a Slave.

Now, I haven't read the book yet, but I have just seen the Oscars and seen all the epic things that the Academy has bestowed on him. Now, with some of it, it could be because the book was a time piece, or because the awards given to Black characters that were playing slaves, but that's more a topic that this blog covers, remarkably well. She can probably explain it better than I can.

I was first excited about this movie because I heard that it was based on an autobiography, and a true story. Now for me, there's nothing like a true story. I really love them. The last full length one that I read was the autobiography of Frederick Douglass, which was totally epic. Most recently, I've been reading random slave narratives, and my current novel is W.E.B Du Bois' "The Souls of Black Folks". As soon as I'm done, I will write its review. But my review is about 12 Years, or rather, the Oscars giving this movie its due. I just read that 12 Years is the first film with a Black director to win the highest honor in the history of the Academy. For some reason I'm really not surprised that, but I am rather disgusted that he is the first. Why do their have to be firsts. It's just... damn, if he was the first, what of other ethnicity? According to what I just read, the Best Director Winner was the first Latin Male to win. Have they had people win for things like this? I don't think so, and that's even sadder. Then again, I have to remember, other ethnicity people have only been considered humans to the White majority for, oh say, 50 years, give or take. Some can argue that it's not fully the case, with proof...

Damn it, I'm digressing to race again.

I have to keep on track that this blog is about writing, reading, characters and things of that nature. As of right now, I should focus on how Lupita obviously did an amazing job bringing Patsy to life. Or rather, back to life.

When watching the commercial, and recently reading articles earlier, I found out the context behind the scene (I'm not going to give a spoiler, but I will say that it's described in the blog that I posted to earlier), and why she was so emotional. That, and she is portraying a REAL PERSON. Patsy would not be known at all if it wasn't for Solomon Northup writing about her. She would have just been another slave woman lost to history.

But because of Mr. Northup's writing, she's actually a person, she is fleshed out, she is given flesh again, and her pain now something that can be seen, and we all know how important sight is for people nowadays. She is more than just some text, or a slave narrative spoken by someone. We were able to see something akin to what she went through, the torture that was all too frequent for slave women. Ms. Nyong'o gave her flesh again (I feel calling her Lupita is far too personal, considering I'm just a blogging fan).

It's not often that someone is really made a person again, especially in something like a movie, but this seems to be a stand out movie. Now, considering that I haven't read the stories of Mr. Northup, nor have I seen the movie yet, this is totally biased just because of my excitement. Its' things like these that are small victories, as a woman, as a writer, especially when the screen play adaptation WON another of the big Academy Awards. That's so fucking brilliant.

After I watch the movie, and read the book, this will be updated with parts two and three.

I'm so very excited. This is brilliant

The Warrior Girls Review

When I went on Project Gutenberg, this book had just been uploaded in its digital form. The title, "The Warrior Girls", and the red cover with bold gold lettering immediately caught my eye. I had images in my head of either girls that had been warriors (like Mulan), or girls that were fighting against magnificent and fearsome creatures. That is not at all what I've gotten since I started this book.

With all fairness, the title is not misleading, the book is indeed about girls, just reaching the cusp of their teen years, during the turn of the century. They're fighting to slay their monsters, but the monsters in this book are the monsters of bad habits. The main protagonist is a girl named Winnifred Burton, whose friends call her Winnie. She is small, and she spends far too much time reading and indulging in things, and not paying attention to her studies. Her and her friends, who previously had a form of a club, decide to change the mission of the club from eating butterscotch, to tackling their personality defects.

For many people, the realization that there aren't any bloody battles and wars, would have them put the book down. I decided to give it a try, and as of the writing of this entry, I'm just over halfway through the book. It's not at all what I expected, and it's much more of a slice of turn-of-the-century life, and trying to fight things like sloth, greed.

There was one girl, Ernestine, that the other young women weren't sure they wanted to include in their group because she lived in an apartment with her father, and she wasn't wealthy, and some of the other girls didn't think she was from a "good family". (SPOILER ALERT) It took the main character's mother explaining that the young woman had been from a good family "old family" of New York, and her father had been an alcoholic that her mother left for the girls to want to be nice and associated with. I just thought that it was disgusting that the parents are worried about whether the family of their child's friend is upstanding. Why does it matter? There's only one mention of Black people in the book, where the school has a play, and one of the little girls does blackface to be the character.

The best part of the book is that there are a lot of archaic words that I am learning. I'm actually highlighting and making notes about them.

As of right now, this is a book I would only recommend to someone that enjoys slice-of-life novels. I'm really hoping the author expands a bit more on the characters, because the majority of the secondary ones are the ones that are a bit more interesting. Hopefully I will have more to add when I finish this book, and hopefully it'll meet my expectations about the next parts.

UPDATE:

I finished the book, and I have to say, there were parts that annoy me, and there was an entire part that annoyed me so much that I kept sucking my teeth. The book is a very cute slice of life, however that is the biggest appeal. Some of the "giants" that the young ladies have battled do translate in to life nowadays, but some of them just feel sad and outdated. Others are just annoying and offend my feminist point of view on life. Then there is something that just offended me as a person that has grieved.

Now I'm not being mean, a lot of the book was nice, at least seeing what White people with the means did with their time in Cincinatti at the turn of the century. If these are things that fascinate you, you'll enjoy this book.

Black Beauty Review

I don't know if I've mentioned it in previous blog posts, but I love animals. Seriously, I take animals over humans any day of the week. That's probably the reason my review of the book is going to be biased.

Black Beauty is the only published novel by writer Anna Sewell. According to Wikipedia (whose information can only be trusted so much), she originally wrote the book for people that work with horses. It's become most famous as a book for children.

I first came in to contact with the book Black Beauty because of a typing program that was on my computer when I was younger. One of the test passages was when Beauty is describing his appearance, starting with "I was now beginning to grow handsome..." that is the only part I had really read up until downloading it. That's not to say that I didn't see it in my elementary school--I did, and I tried to read it a few times but I just never made it past the first few pages. I'm not quite sure why. Anyway, it was downloadable to my Kindle, and I finally made my way through.

The book is a biography of a finely bred horse named Black Beauty, from when he was a foal, all the way through to old age. His life starts off rather charmed, but there were years when it was very hard. He also meets other horses, and learns of their life stories. I have to tell you, this book will give you a mega dose of the feels. I cried a quite a few parts when the horses were describing some of the hardships that they had went through. There were animals, like a particular mare named Ginger, who had grown up without knowing human kindness. It hurts me to think that any animal can have such a hard life, although I know it still happens today (hello, I live in New York City--we still have carriage rides that can be taken) to a lesser extent.

Apparently when the book came out, it brought a lot of awareness to the plight that cab horses in London were going through. Not only that, it also criticized people that did things to their horses for the sake of fashion, like bearing reins. From the (minimal) research that I've done, there are situations where the rein is still used, but for shows, and not to the extreme of making the horse look "proud" and hold their head tall. Horses lean their heads forward when doing things to help disperse the weight evenly.

"Proudly" unable to move their necks

That just looks lovely, doesn't it...? The thing that makes Beauty's story so special is that he doesn't just have cushy homes, he changes hands, and owners, experiencing the full spectrum of humanity. And above all else, he does his best to stay a sweet, kind, gentle horse. Even through the bad times, he doesn't allow it to change his disposition, always taking his mother's advice. Once again, a dose of the feels.

The copy that I had was a digital download from Kindle, for free. It doesn't have any pictures, but it is a very nice text copy, and most of the archaic or European words/phrases have a definition in my dictionary, and the ones that I couldn't look up, or needed a visual reference for, were easily found via web search. Whilst on the subject of vocabulary; this is not at all a difficult book. If you're reading it to a younger audience, you will have to define some of the words, and some picture references will be appropriate, but it should be easily digestible, although some parts will get their emotions going. If this is for a younger audience, and you're reading a paper copy, I do suggest having the internet near by, just for some pictures, especially if the young person isn't equine savvy. If they are, it might not be necessary. If you're older, you still might want to do some research, although if you're anything like me, a little research can lead to an hour of reading about diseases of horse hooves.

I suggest this book to anyone that likes animals, nice descriptions, history, and autobiographies. This is a very lovely book, and I'm happy to have read it.

"Second Child" By John Saul Review

I mentioned there would be a lot of updates.

A few days ago, I finally took up my sister on her fantastic reviews of the book Second Child by John Saul, and bought it for my Kindle. I spent my day yesterday reading it, and I have to say, it really was a good book.

It is quite a bit different from most of the other works that I've read, because it's incredibly modern, published in 1991, and its setting is the late 80s, early 90s. My sister read it years ago when I was a youngin'; from what she describes, it's odd that it wasn't one of the many books of hers that I stole at the age and read, although I must admit the cover looks somewhat familiar to me.

Anyway, on to the review. I'm not going to get into all of the details of the plot, but it revolves mostly around two half sisters, brought together by tragedy to live together amongst the elite hoity toity in Secret Cove, Maine, at their father's summer house. But strange things that have already happened, begin to grow more frequently.

This book has one of the worst mothers that I've read, only a few steps beneath Catherine Dollenganger , as far as how she treats her daughter. It's a really awesome story, and not something that I would have read recently if I wasn't told how good it is. It crosses over quite a few different genres; it's young adult, it's horror, it's supernatural, it's a bit psychological, it's a thriller... it's a really nice page turner.

There are some cons, some times where I shook my head, talked to my Kindle about how the character was acting/responding to what was going on with her. I'm trying to figure out how characters could be so totally blinded by beauty and grace to not believe what was going on around them. I really don't want to give away anything that happens, because I'd love for you to read it yourself.

As far as the Kindle copy, it was lovely... and $7.99. Now, I'm still not sure how I feel about paying that much for it, but considering my sister told me this is a book that I would want to own, I'm not upset. If you're a fan of John Saul, then I would suggest buying it. If you're someone that's never read his work, I would suggest going to your local library and taking out a copy, and buying it if you find that it's too awesome to part with. There are already other books by the same author that my sister is suggesting for me to look at, and I have to say, I'd love to read more of his work. I might actually have to go to the library and take out some books, just like I used to do when I was younger.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame or Disney's Biggest Classic to Movie Failure

I have finally finished reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame!

WARNING: No one makes it to the end of the book happy, except one character.

Yes, it is officially done, and it was an amazing experience, in a good and bad way.

The first copy of Hunchback that I had was a PDF, and that was the worst thing I could possibly do to help with reading it. This book not only has difficult regular vocabulary, but it also has many phrases in Latin, and in (what I'm guessing is) archaic French. Then I finally stopped being a cheap ass and bought a copy for my kindle.

The first thing that I must say is that this book is not a book that you should go into lightly, unless you're like a super genius or something, and you're well-versed in ancient writing. If you are, you're probably not even reading a review from a plebian such as myself.

Now, the book should not have had the title The Hunchback of Notre Dame, because the book isn't about Quasimodo, although he is one of the main characters. That would be like me calling a book The Black Girl of Greenwich Village, when the book is about the entire neighborhood.

If I really had to choose a main character of the book, I would choose the cathedral itself. I don't know how many pages are spent describing it, and describing all the historical people that helped create it. There are times, when you get these really magnificent images that are built upon for pages and pages. That's nice, but then you forget that there is something else going on that you lost track a while ago. Besides the crazy historical things that he goes in to. Only a fraction of the people he mentioned actually had an entry in my Kindle's dictionary.

Victor Hugo is an amazing author, and he has a real talent of weaving together ten different character's stories, and ending them seamlessly. There were a few characters that I was like "dafuq do I care about this dude?", and later on, I was like "ooooooh, wooooow". I have to admit, you probably will have a problem in the first few books keeping the names and character's straight, except Claude Frollo and Quasimodo, and of course Esmerelda. After a while, you begin to associate the name with the actions, and you really get the drift of them, not to mention, the characters have distinct speaking styles, at least, a lot of them do.

This book is not for children, even if the language was simplified. People talk about his Quasimodo being a demon that should be burnt or drowned. Not only that, there's also some Antisemitism.

A lot of people of my generation might come to the table with their prescribed idea of the characters from what Disney told up in their movie. Some might come to it after watching Lon Chaney Sr.'s brilliant (and I do mean brilliant) performance, or a host of other cinematic depictions of the book.

Rather than starting on my basic breakdown of characters (the ones that are in both the book and the movie, because a lot were omitted), considering how people are familiar with the "gist" or what they think if the gist.

Quasimodo:

In the Disney movie, he's a kind of squat, red-headed dude with a hunched back, wart-hooded eye, kind of piggy nose, uneven (but adorable) front toothed misshapen loner. He sings, he dances, he talks to gargoyles and generally has a sweet demeanor.Disney was able to take a character that didn't have many lines in the novel, was deaf and half blind, and make him something cuddily. 

The real Quasimodo was hunchbacked, bandy legged,with teeth that stuck out like tusks, a ridiculous amount of strength, and an inner pain that made him cruel to most people, since they were cruel to him. Hugo says "One would have pronounced him a giant who had been broken and badly put together again."  There was no singing on his part, except an incredibly sad song he sung near the last part of the book. He didn't have gargoyles talking back to them, but he did have a connection with the cathedral and one gargoyle that he felt kindred to. He did talk to the bells however, and he had their names, and referred to them as his loves. Quasimodo didn't do much wrong in his life, and unlike the movie, he is incredibly stoic, to the point where being shot with an arrow doesn't even make him blink. He's honestly the character that I have the most pity for in the entire book, because his whole world crumbles around him. He's honestly the most pitiful character I've read, in a dead heat with Victor Frankenstein's Creation. If there was anything that I can say he had, was unwavering faithfulness, which made him so much more tragic.

Dom Frollo:

He seems made to be evil. Tall, long and gaunt, with bags under his eyes as if he's one thousand years old. He is an asshole of the highest category, from the way that he talks to Quasimodo and puts him down, to the general fuckery and judgmental manners.

In the book he was the only person that wanted to take Quasimodo in, and he NEVER mentioned to Quasi how disfigured. Frollo also had a younger brother that he loved and cared for (I can't remember if he was in the Disney one), and he was only 30 years old. Granted he was prematurely aged, and he was bald atop, and his hair was gray, but that was because he was so studious, and passionate about everything that he studied. If someone says that I have a thirst for knowledge, Frollo had an entirely unquenchable thirst, something that made him pretty crazy. If there's anything I can say about Frollo, he drove himself crazy.

Phoebus:

In the movie, he is a typical Disney hot dude that saves the day type. He is caring and "falls in love" with Esmerelda. He is injured and all, and they live happily ever after. -_-

I wish they had kept him true to character, because I think the Phoebus in the book is so much more realistic as to how those hot dudes are. To put it shortly, is an asshole playah. He has no real feeling for Esmerelda, he can't even say her name right, and he only wants the pussy. He is the unequivocal love interest, but he doesn't deserve to be the love interest. I can't think of an asshole that I dislike more than this fuckwad, as far as characters. Hell, "The Grandmother" from Flowers in the Attic is a more decent character than this scumwad.

Esmerelda:

Beautiful, dark-skinned, with eyes that glimmered like the emerald she is "named" after. She is intelligent, caring, sees past Quasimodo's outside, and falls in love with a handsome man and lives happily ever after. And she has Djali, her beautiful little goat.

A sixteen-year old, tanned (not nearly as dark as the character in the movie), ridiculously beautiful, dark eyed, naive girl. She does have a moment when she has sympathy and shows kindness to Quasimodo, something he never forgets. But more than anything... she is a stupid character. She is one of the most ridiculously stupid little girls (for she is more girl than woman) in my literature history. I was sick of her after half the book, because she was just so stupid and naive. I'd have imagined, living with a band of thieves her entire life, she'd have learned more than how to work a dagger, and teach her little goat. She becomes absolutely smitten with Phoebus, and that's all she cares about. Quite literally. She never takes the time to find the inner beauty of Quasimodo, although she understands that he's kind, and always brings her  vittles, and she knows he is utterly devoted. She never gets comfortable enough to look at him for long, and doesn't seem to understand anything other than what her heart becomes fixated on.

The Outcasts:

In the movie, they are Travelers that are outcasts because they aren't like the others. These are people God probably should help.

The Outcasts are a group of thieves, con artists, prostitutes, and vagabonds of all natures. They're not people that are outcast because society is full of douche bags, these are people outcast mostly by their own choice, because they don't want to live under the constraints of French society. These are not people God will help, because they (for the most part) don't want to be helped. They enjoy their place on the fringe of society.

If I am to end this review of the novel with anything, it would be that people should give it a chance. If you get really confused, take some time away from it, or skip over the extra wordy sections, because Hugo does have ways of letting you know important things are about to start back up. This is an amazing book, and a classic for a reason. I will say that if you're a sap, this will be a hard read. I was PMSing when I was finishing th estory, and I was crying almost constantly the last six or seven pages.

Were I to be a teacher, I would definitely want to teach this book to my students, whilst first watching the movie. It's wordy, and hard and difficult, but I think I could teach people to fall in love with it. I mean, c'mon, it has attempted rape, murder, attempted murder, sexual assualt, and lots of death and gore. If I jazz up those parts, I'll get even the most non literature liking person to enjoy it, especially if I find some graphic pictures to go with the teaching.

Red Dragon By Thomas Harris Review

Remember that whole Black history month reading list? How I had Invisible Man on it? I got fifty pages into the book, and I realized that I was reading it with only the most basic understanding of what was going on. So basic did it feel, that I really want to get a companion guide whilst I read. This might sound bad, coming from a writer and all, but I fucking suck at identifying the meaning behind symbolism, and what the deeper context means. When I'm picturing something, I basically picture it at face value. So, I'm going to go back to Ellison when I actually have a snowball's chance at understanding what is going on.

That's why I started reading Red Dragon. Yes, I had to use that color and everything in order to write the name. I'll start off by saying that I'm a fan of Thomas Harris, particularly a fan of his fantastical character Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The only literary villain that I've had as much fun reading in a series of stories has been Lord Voldemort himself.  Last year, I read Hannibal, and I loved it (I also lent it to a friend who had a gay old time with it). A few years before that, I read Silence of the Lambs. I remember so distinctly that Harris is one of the few authors whose books I've read have actually given me flashes of the movies. Granted, there are still differences (in some cases rather major ones that I shan't reveal due to their spoiler nature), but they're much less dramatic than some screen play treatments (i.e Flowers in the Attic).

When going in to the book, I'd already been in love with the movie, and the titular antagonist played by Ralph Fiennes (Also Voldemort's actor). I wasn't sure how the original character stacked up to how he was played, the same with Ed Norton's Detective Graham. Just like with Silence of the Lambs, there were times that I was able to sync the movie with the book, and picture all the characters. I had been told by a friend that the Dragon was actually not hot like Fiennes, but as I read further into the book, I found that comment wasn't exactly true.

Because this is just a review, and not a synopsis (something many a critiquing person seems to confuse), I won't get into the plot, I'll go straight into the style of writing. Harris does a few things with his style that I rarely see with other writers. Sometimes he uses jarringly short sentences, ones that give you a very clipped image of what is going on. Another thing he does (that to be honest, I thought was one of the cardinal writing rules you're not supposed to break) is switch tenses. Unlike back in the early days of my writing, his have a purpose, and make the reader feel as if they're right in the moment, watching it unfold with every word they read. It's actually refreshing for it to happen, and sometimes it's so subtle that I don't realize I'm in the present tense.

The copy of the book that I had was a PDF version, so there were typos on the behalf of whoever types it up, and there were a few images that I know I would have gotten if I had actually had a legit copy. What can I really say about PDF versions of books, they have their upsides and their downsides, but that's not for me to explore here.

Harris is careful about his language, and doesn't use any words that I would be forced to look up, something I like a lot. At just over 200 pages, it was a relatively fast read, although chocked full of information and some technical things. I feel like Harris is the kind of writer that checks his background information well, or has an editor that does a bloody brilliant job. I would say that this book, as with his other books, is a read for a mature reader. Now, I'm not saying a certain age, because I know I technically could have read this in middle school, but the main characters have some pretty shitty memories that they're forced to look back on, and we journey with them, including some really jacked up abuse and murders.

All in all, I really have to give this book two thumbs up. It's a Thomas Harris book. What more can I say.

Oh, and a little random fact that made me giggle: the Red Dragon's birthday is the day after mine. Gemini's whoop whoop!