An Armchair BEA Giveaway -- and Initial Thoughts on The Penelopiad

My friend Bellezza at Dolce Bellezza and I are reading Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad this week, as part of the Read-A-Myth Challenge – and some other bloggers have decided to join in as well! We’re going to post our reviews on May 30. The book is short, there’s plenty of time, so please feel free to join us as well!

So after an evening of reading, here are my initial thoughts and questions about what I’ve read. And there’s a giveaway too!

First, I was not prepared for how funny it was going to be:

After her wedding to Odysseus:
“And so I was handed over to Odysseus, like a package of meat. A package of meat in a wrapping of gold, mind you. A sort of gilded blood pudding.” (pg. 39)

Also, Penelope is a far saucier character than I imagined!

On her mother-in-law:
“That Anticleia would freeze the b*lls off Helios.” (pg. 61)

I am wondering about Penelope’s mother. I had no idea that she was a Naiad. Is that in the original story? Isn’t it interesting to give the most steadfast character in Greek mythology the flightiest of mothers? So far I absolutely love the book. I hope everyone else is enjoying it as well!

The Giveaway

To celebrate my Armchair BEA, as well as our book buddy read-along, I’m giving away the winner’s choice of any of the books in the Canongate Myth series available through the Book Depository (so the contest is international, but you must live in a country where Book Depository offers free delivery). To enter, just follow this blog on GFC (below, right) and leave a comment with your email, so I can contact you! Each entry will be assigned a number, and I'll use random.org to pick the winning digits! Giveaway is open until May 27.

The Canongate Myth Series allows modern authors to reimagine traditional myths from many cultures. For those of you not familiar, here are the books in the series:

A Short History of Myth, Karen Armstrong
The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood
Weight, Jeanette Winterson
The Helmet of Horror, Victor Pelevin (trans. Andrew Bromfield)
Lion's Honey, David Grossman (trans. Stuart Schoffman)
Dream Angus, Alexander McCall Smith
Girl Meets Boy, Ali Smith
Binu and the Great Wall, Su Tong (trans. Howard Goldblatt)
Where Three Roads Meet, Salley Vickers
Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, Dubravka Ugrešić
The Fire Gospel, Michel Faber
The Myth of Izanagi and Izanami, Natsuo Kirino
Orphans of Eldorado, Milton Hatoum Mythology of Amazonia
The Hurricane Party, Klas Östergren
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, Philip Pullman

Good luck, and thanks for stopping by! Don't forget to check out the other giveaways at Armchair BEA Central!

Belated but very grateful: The Princess Bride Wrap-up

Not an excuse, but an explanation: I have been sick with a miserable cold and unfortunately too busy at work to take any time to heal (mid-terms, guest lectures, and letters of recommendation adding to my usual crazy schedule). So while I have been reading and thoroughly enjoying The Princess Bride Milestones, I have not found the energy for a blog post. Solution: Today I’m going to wrap up with my take on the last three Milestones, an unorthodox approach, but one that I hope will bring me some satisfaction – this reading thing is supposed to be fun, not stressful, after all! So here goes:

Milestones 3 and 4: In which the movie as most of us know it takes place, but way better

The Princess Bride is an “ensemble” film, peopled with supporting characters, but none truly “starring.” Yes, Buttercup and Westley’s love story is the central focus of the film, but it serves to tether the fine character performances to the script, rather than to dominate the action. The calculus of the book is quite different, however, and with fewer time-oriented constraints Goldman fleshed out some of the movie’s most colorful characters. This is why the best part of the book for me has definitely been the development of Inigo and Fezzik.

Inigo and Fezzik’s terrifying trip through the Zoo of Death was the best part of the book that didn’t make it into the movie. As they descend toward Westley, every level is booby-trapped with a menagerie of monstrous creature encounters, each of which tests a different skill. Fezzik and Inigo must prod each other through the levels, bickering and rhyming as they go.

Fezzik got up and lumbered after him, saying, “Inigo, listen, I made a mistake before, you didn’t lie to me, you tricked me, and father always said tricking was fine, so I’m not mad at you anymore, and is that all right with you? It’s all right with me.”

They turned the knob on the door at the bottom of the black stairs and stepped onto the fourth level.

Inigo looked at him. “You mean you’ll forgive me completely for saving your life if I completely forgive you for saving mine?”

“You’re my friend, my only one.”

“Pathetic, that’s what we are,” Inigo said.

“Athletic.”

After the Zoo of Death, the book was almost entirely familiar to those who had seen the movie: Miracle Max; the holocaust cloak; Buttercup’s unwelcome wedding; Inigo’s revenge on the evil Rugen; Westley’s outwitting of the slimy Humperdinck; and Fezzik’s rescue with four white horses. Only in the book, even Buttercup helps with the rescue, using her unwanted royal status to get the four past the brute squad.

Milestone 5: In which we almost get a love scene, and Fezzik is possessed

I have no idea what to make of the “first chapter” of Buttercup’s Baby. Here are the highlights of my inner rant while reading this section:

What the heck does Stephen King have to do with anything? Thank goodness Westley and Buttercup finally seem a bit "interested" in one another! Is Goldman really stuck on the sequel? One thing that the Introduction made clear was Goldman’s fondness for Andre the Giant who played Fezzik. I find it easy to believe that he planned a larger role for him in a sequel. But channeling some ancient midwife to perform Caesareans in caves? Stephen King playing Florinese kingmaker?

I could not wrap my head around it. Too much Goldman, not enough Baby. No wonder the second book has never been finished.

Did I like the book? Yes, very much. The only problem for me was its familiarity. I am not one to re-read books, although I can watch beloved movies over and over again. And I’ve seen the movie so many times, know so much of the dialog by heart in fact, that the book just held very few surprises. Still, I’m glad I read it, just to get to know Fezzik and Inigo better. As for the sequel, if this is where it’s headed, I’d suggest Goldman give up: his magnum opus is complete.

Many thanks to Chris at chrisbookarama for hosting this readalong. It was a pleasure reading everyone’s comments!

The Princess Bride: Milestone 2

Okay, now we're getting somewhere!

* Spoiler Alert -- If you haven't read The Princess Bride, or seen the movie, you probably don't want to read further*

In this week's reading, "The Announcement," Buttercup is engaged to the (I think pretty evil) Prince Humperdinck, taught to be a princess (but that isn't one of the "good parts," so Goldman claims to have cut it out), kidnapped by Vizzini, Inigo and Fezzik (who plan to kill her on the Guilder frontier), and liberated from her kidnappers by the even-more-frightening Man in Black.

The Man in Black, it turns out, is Westley, who has returned to Florin as the Dread Pirate Roberts to save Buttercup. The dialogue in this section is wonderful, as Westley takes on each of the members of the villianous trio, besting Inigo at swordplay, besting Fezzik in brute strength, and besting Vizzini at a battle of wits. So funny. So clever. So quick. This section reminded me why I loved the movie so much in the first place.

But it's even better than that, because this section offers something the movie didn't - the backstory on two of literature's most endearing felons: Inigo and Fezzik. We come to understand how these men turned to a life of crime, which actually matters, because reconciling the characters at the beginning of the story (where they conspire to murder Buttercup) and at the end (where they ultimately join forces with the Man in Black) has always been a weakness of the story as far as I was concerned.

And then comes the Fire Swamp - again, the book helps us understand how Westley comes to make the tactical error of wandering into it, even as we know his considerable skills will get him and Buttercup through. The end of the reading is sad, as Humperdinck bundles Buttercup back to Florin, and Westley is taken prisoner by the evil Count Rugen.

With this week's reading, Goldman has made good on his title promise of "true love and high adventure." I am hooked, and eager to read on!

Thanks again to Chris at Chrisbookarama for hosting this readalong!

The Princess Bride: Milestone 1

One of my reading goals for the fall was to join a readalong. Reading is lonely business -- unless of course you're reading to someone else -- and I thought it might be fun to participate in an ongoing discussion. So I couldn't believe my luck when I stumbled onto an announcement that Chrisbookarama was hosting a readalong of The Princess Bride, a book I had never read, but based on a movie that I love more everytime I see it.

Which is why it came as quite a shock when I had some trouble getting into the book.

You see, I wasn't really prepared for the Introduction. I was all ready for true love and high adventure, and what I got was altogether different: William Goldman's "mockumentary" explanation of how he came to write both the book and the movie. Actually, the story is a pretty good one, albeit a little self-indulgent on Goldman's part, I think. I just hadn't anticipated it.

But once I got to Chapter 1 The Bride, the book delivered on the movie's promise. That's especially true because without the time constraints of a movie, Goldman has a lot more time to develop the characters. Buttercup, in particular, seems like a much more substantial character in the book, as when she declares her love for Westley, and he slams the door in her face.

"Chalk it up to experience, old girl, and get on with the morning. Buttercup stood, made her bed, changed her clothes, combed her hair, smiled, and burst out again in a fit of weeping. Because there was a limit to just how much you could lie to yourself."

The other characters are also more fleshed out -- Humperdinck, in particular, appears more villianous than in the movie, where Count Rugen appeared to be the "brains" of the operation. Now that the high adventure has begun, I am eager to read on. I'm also eager to hear everyone else's thoughts, especially about the way Goldman "inserts" himself into the text. Thanks to Chrisbookarama for hosting this readalong!

Next stop, Guilder!