“Sometimes Costs Are Made To Be Borne.”

Hi folks, as promised a lovely rambling about a book I got to finished on my vacation.  Let's start hard and heavy with the newest installment in the Harry Potter world...Harry Potter and the Cursed Child story by J.K. Rowling script by John Tiffany and Jack Thorne.  I picked this book up as soon as it came out, so excited to get back into my beloved wizarding world that I couldn't wait until I left and promptly curled up and read the whole book in one sitting!  How did I feel about this latest entry...first, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

First of all the book is written in play/script form so it is right of the bat a bit different from the novel style soooo...yeah. Also if you have not read the books this will make absolutely no sense whatsoever so I'm gonna assume you have read them or watched the movies.  Our story starts off years after the last book left off.  Harry Potter is now grown and he and his wife Ginny are at platform 9 3/4 to drop of their son's James and Albus for their train trip to Hogwarts.  Albus is concerned that he may be put into Slytherin and Harry tries to put his mind at ease.  Once on the train Albus makes fast friends with Scorpius the only son of Draco Malfoy and his late and beloved wife.  Albus is sorted into Slytherin, but he does not mind as it means being in the same house as his best friend Scorpius.  Albus who has a rocky relationship with his father, who is still known as the Boy Who Lived witnesses an elderly Amos Diggroy try and convince Harry to use a Time Turner to go back in time and save his son Cedric from being killed.  Harry who is the head of Magical Law Enforcement informs Amos that all the Time Turners were destroyed back during the battle at the Ministry of Magic.  Amos does not believe him and rails at what he considers the pointless death of his son.  Albus feels like he understands Amos's point of view, that his father does not listen and act to other people when they come to him.  Amos's niece and caretaker Delphi gets together with Albus to try and convince him to find a Time Turner.  Albus enlists the aid of Scorpius and the trio decide to use their patchwork Time Turner to keep Cedric from dying.  The first attempt is at the first task in the Tri-Wizard tournament.  They keep him from getting his wand, 'causing him to lose the first task.  Meanwhile back in the present, the boys parents start to look for the boys.  Harry talks to the painting of Dumbldore in his office and comes to the conclusion that he needs to seperate Albus from Scorpius.  The boys return to the present and realize that their meddling had some unintended consequences and still did not result in saving Cedric.  Harry's decision to separate Albus from Scorpius pretty much ends their father son relationship and Delphi convinces the two boys to reconcile and try to save Cedric again.  They go back and this time humiliate Cedric to keep him from winning the second task.  When the Time Turner sends them back to the new present Scorpius realizes that Albus is nowhere to be found.  In fact the whole world has changed for the worse.  Voldemort now rules with a person called the Augury as his second in command.  Harry Potter has died because a humiliated Cedric turned to the dark side and killed Neville at the battle of Hogwarts, keeping Nagini alive.  Scorpius finds Snape (yay Snape!) and convinces him of who he is.  Snape takes him to this version of Hermione and Ron who help him go back in time once more.  Scorpius pretty much stops all the changes from ever happening.  Through out all of this we watch Hermione, Ron, Harry, Ginny and Draco all work through their various issues.  Harry especially has to come to terms with everything that happened in his childhood and how it now affects his relationships with his own kids, especially Albus.  Delphi comes to hear Albus and Scorpius tell her about the changes that happened every time they tried to save Cedric and how it was impossible.  Delphi seems oddly interested in the future in which Voldemort and the Augury rule together.  The boys then glimpse a tattoo on Delphi's back of an Augury, a type of wizard bird that tells of tragedy.  Turns out that Delphi claims to be the child of Voldemort and Bellatrix and has been using the boys to try and find a future that she can be with her father.  She forces the boys to use the Time Turner to go back to the day that Voldemort killed Harry's parents.  Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Draco use a hint that Albus left for them to find where and when the boys are.  They go and find the boys.  They figure out that Delphi is going to keep Voldemort from trying to kill Harry, therefore not being cursed and retaining his strength.  They trick Delphi into a trap and they all return to a restored present.  Delphi is taken to Azkahban and life returns to somewhat normal.  Albus and Harry talk and start the path to repairing their relationship.  Albus and Scorpius remain friends and life gets better.

World Building - The book/script is set in the very well established world of J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter and since she wrote the original story the world is still there and still intact.  The fact that the story makes extensive use of the Time Turner and most of the action takes place in Hogwarts and other familiar settings gives a sense of going back.  The world building in this particular story probably works best for people who have read the previous books as it depends on this fore knowledge to help build the world.  It is the same magical, complicated and complete world that J.K. Rowling worked so hard to build for us.

Story - The story was pretty cool.  I loved that idea of exploring the future of a boy who had done so much in his childhood/young adulthood and now has to cope with being a fairly mundane adult.  The story of his son integrated very well as a brand new story that was still in the same vein as the previous ones.   I felt the story got a bit bogged down in with the multiple Time Turner trips, Harry's story, Albus and Scorpius's story, Delphi's story and everything else shoved into a short space and wanted it to be a bit more streamlined, but the over all idea was pretty good.

Characters - This story had a weird mix of familiar characters in a new place in their lives and all new characters.  I think I liked the new characters better then the older ones.  I loved Albus and Scorpius and their awesome friendship.  I liked how they were different from any of the previous characters in the older books and had their own identities.  For the most part I liked how the adult Harry was developed with his anxiety over his children, his coming to terms with his childhood, how different his life must be now.  I was a bit disappointed in Ron and Hermione.  Hermione came across as an exasperated, harried overly busy person and Ron was relegated to a goofy background character who was completely diminished from the brave and loyal every man I remember from the books, so that was a bit sad.  Overall I preferred the new characters to the old in this story.

Editing - Since this was a theatre script it read very different from the original novels and that has to be kept in mind when talking about the flow of this story.  It is broken up a lot more then in a regular book making the story a bit hard to follow on occasion as it has to skip around to get all the characters to the places they need to be.  That being said, as mentioned in the story section I felt that there was too many stories that were trying to be told in the same space which made feel a bit frenetic and bogged down all at the same time.  There is also very little immediate background given, with the authors assuming that the audience/reader has prior knowledge of the other books.

Fatherhood - I found the most prominent theme in this story was the relationship between father and child.  Mothers played a role, but it was the fathers that really took center stage in this book.  I liked how all the different varieties of relationship were explored.  The main one of course being Harry and Albus and the difficulty they had in understanding each other.  Harry still struggling to justify his own life had no idea how to deal with a son who was both very different and eerily similar to himself.  Draco and Scorpius had one of the sweetest relationships, especially considering the dominating relationship that Draco had with his father, the love and affection he (eventually) show's his beloved son is even more poignant.  Even with Delphi, I got the feeling that her actions were not done to bring about a dark world, but to try and have some sort of relationship with her own father in any way possible.

Time Turners - As much as I felt that the Time Turner bit was used a bit to heavily, I did like that it showed just how well Ms. Rowling knows her own world.  I thought that it was awesome to see that a world was so complete that the author could change one seemingly small aspect of it and then be able to follow the change through so thoroughly.  When time travel is used as device it can become confusing and a bit deus ex machina, but the subtle simple changes leading to logical and yet far reaching implications was pretty masterful and I very much appreciate the thought that went into it.

Return to Childhood - For many of us who read the Harry Potter as it came out, waiting in line for the newest installment then ignoring any and all responsibilities to finish each book before the inevitable spoilers came out, this book was throw back to that insane feeling of awesome.  Reading the book as an adult, seeing the characters we grew up with as adults, reading adventures of their kids to our kids and nephews kind of brings home the full circle of how beloved this series is.  It is a weird mix of nostalgia, anticipation and melancholy, a realization that everybody, even the Boy Who Lived has to grow up and be some sort of adult.  I'm not really sure how to describe the feeling, but I know it is shared by my fellow "adult" Harry Potter fans.

Overall Impression - I am very very very glad to have read this book, I loved that it was in a completely different format, and I am now dying to see it performed.  It was a lot of fun to go back to a beloved world, it's been a blast discussing it with my fellow HP fans.  The book is not a home run, but it is a solid and acceptable entry into the Harry Potter Universe.  I give it a 7 out of 10 love potions and recommend it to anybody who loved the HP series and can't wait to read the next installment.  Happy Reading Everybody!

The Tempest LIVE!

My amazing Hubbin and a couple of friends took me out the other night to a fabulous dinner, and a killer performance of William Shakespeare's The Tempest.  The Tempest is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays and seeing performed live was the best.  A quick summation (and SPOILERS) of the play is as follows.

Prospero, a magician and his daughter Miranda have been marooned/exiled on a magical isle for years.  Prospero was the Duke of Milan before being exiled by his brother Antonio.  He learns that that his brother and company are on a ship and he raises a tempest to wreck the ship on his island.  Prospero commands the spirit Ariel and tasks it with several jobs concerning the shipwrecked crew.  Antonio's son Ferdinand is separated from the group and put to work by Prospero.  Meanwhile, Caliban, a native of the island, and a slave of Prospero's who falls in with a drunk and a clown from the shipwreck.  The three form a drunken agreement to overthrow Prospero, adding some much needed humor tot the play.  Antonio and his group experience several difficulties and finally end up with Prospero through the machinations of Ariel.  They discover that Ferdinand and Miranda have fallen in love and want to be married.  Prospero forgives all who have wronged him, sets Caliban free and enjoins Ariel to make ready good sailing weather.  Ariel is finally freed after this last task and Prospero renounces magic by breaking his staff.  This is but a brief synopsis if you want more...well go read or watch it :-).

The production of The Tempest I got to see was put on by the Shakespeare Theatre Company and was very well done.  The best part of the whole production had to be the set.  The stage and theatre itself was super cool to begin with, there were no bad seats and it was just awesome.  The sets themselves were extremely well done.  They utilized the entire stage, including the wings, which made for a very dynamic staging.  The main set was an impressive shipwreck on a mound of real sand, with a sun that traveled across the sky.  The casting and costumes were pretty well done,  I really liked how they showed Prospero's magic using actors as spirits that blended into the island background and were almost always present.  They did what Prospero bid but were supposed to be "invisible" to the characters, which was pretty cool.  The only real problem I had was with the

character of Ariel.  This is my favorite character in the play and I have a very definite preference for how the spirit is played.  I like it to be played androgynous, wild and elemental.  This is totally a personal preference.  This Ariel was played a bit to saucy and comical for my taste.  They had her on this really cool rope system to fly around the stage, and they made the rope a part of what tied her to Prospero, which was a great way to incorporate a necessary part of the staging.  The actress felt to practiced in her movements, I could almost see her thinking about each move "place this hand here, extend toes now" and so on and so forth.  Considering the rest of the blocking, this could have been how the director wanted it played as most of the characters moved in a very deliberate and pointed manner, but for me the character lost a lot of it's wildness and elementalness.  I felt like instead of a captured spirit of the wind, I was watching a Christmas angel.  Overall I very much enjoyed the play and cannot wait to go see another one.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Walk Like An Egyptian

After my unending praise of Middle Grade books yesterday, I thought I would do a rambling on the book that set off my current adoration of the genre.  The book is The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder who besides having one of the coolest names ever, wrote a book that could have come straight from my childhood.  First as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

April has just moved from Hollywood, living with her glamorous...if featherheaded mother to living with her more run of the mill grandmother.  She now lives in an apartment building and soon meets another girl by the name of Melanie.  At first Melanie thinks April, with her false eyelashes and odd updo is a bit strange, but soon the girls, along with Melanie's little brother Marshall find a shared love of Egypt.  Chance is in their favor and they discover a bit of fenced off yard that they turn into a type of temple/shrine/play place for their game.  The three come up with elaborate story lines, rituals, ceremonies, costumes, getting so into the game that on occasion it seems real.  Soon a new girl Elizabeth moves into the neighborhood and joins the game, adding her own pieces of imagination.  Unfortunately the fun is almost ruined when the body of a local child is found.  To make matters worse, this is the second murdered child in the area in two years.   Along with being stuck inside where the adults can keep an eye on them, April is also upset over the fact that her mother, in one of her infrequent communications has told her daughter that she has gotten married, but their is still no place for her.  Halloween finally sees the adults letting up a bit and allowing the children to go trick or treating in supervised groups.  April convinces the kids to sneak off and play the game for a few minutes.  While there, two boys from April and Melanie's class, Ken and Toby crash the game and exchange for letting them play, agree to keep quiet.  The four original players are nervous about the new additions, but it turns out the boys, especially Toby have some great idea's to add to the game.  One night, while she is baby-sitting Marshall, April realizes she left a school book in the yard and takes Marshall to go get it.  On the out of the yard, April is grabbed by a man, and is saved when the Professor, the man who owns the yard the children were playing in, breaks a window and calls for help.  Marshall is able to identify the attacker and the murders are solved.  The Professor allows the children to continue to play in the yard and they all play until they get too old for playing to be cool.

So this is going to be a bit of a different ramble.  I will tell you right now that I loved loved loved this book.  The reason I loved it so much can be directly attributed to my own childhood.  Growing up my parents were pretty strict on the amount of time we spent in front of screens, not just TV, but any consoles, computers or handheld devices.  We were encouraged to play together, and with our friends.  To this end my three siblings and I, along with various friends, came up with the most elaborate games.  Most of the time these games took much longer to set up then they did to actually play.  Looking back the most amazing part was the ability of up to 14 kids (our parent's had a regular get together with a couple other families) ages 3-14 could actually communicate, coordinate and agree on a plan of action.  We had a diverse group, with TONS of idea's, lots of skill sets and and varied interests.  We used to set up whole towns, hold elections, build road signs.  We would write, cast, design, and produce our own plays.  We created whole worlds with their own magics, rules and ecosystems.  Sometimes our games would go on for days.  One of the things that struck me in the

book is that four of the six players were in sixth grade.  I cannot think of ANY sixth graders now who would be caught dead playing imagination games that did not involve a MMORPG game.  It makes me sad that even our younger kids, who are still willing to play, probably spend more time in front of a screen then in their playroom, and by the time they hit Middle School, they have turned into gadget toting pre-teens.  I hate that we now have an environment where we encourage our kids to grow up way to fast in certain area's, while teaching them to rely on social media and other people's opinions, rather then their own sense of self to judge their worth.  I am sure every generation feels like this, but when I read books like this, and realize how many social skills I learned by playing these types of games, and how most kids I know, even if they are in a room with other kids, don't do a whole lot of interaction.  I myself am a technology lover, and I don't want to "go back" to the way things were...I just hope we can find a way to spark that same elaborate sense of play and cooperation that I grew up with.  Ok so this was less of a ramble and more of a personal speculation, but one of the best things about a good book is it makes you think, and this book made me think...and remember.  I give this book an 8 out of 10 Crocodile gods and would suggest it to anybody who remembers a playroom without a screen.  Happy Reading Everybody!
What kind of games did you play growing up?  Do you think kids play differently today?  Do I have a valid point, or am I just old?

What's In A Name?

Sorry for the lack of post yesterday, had a minor emergency, but it's all good now.  To make it up to you I have a rambling of one of my favorite plays.  I love reading play, it's the theatre major in me, it takes me back to my stage days and just makes me really happy.  It is also a different way to get a story, everything broken down into scenery, stage directions, and script gives you most of the info you need, but allows you to imagine it any way you want.  Today's play is The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde and has long been one of my absolute favorite plays.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

We start with our two main men, Algernon and John discussing a cigarette case that John had left at Algies house.  We learn that up until this point Algie had only known John as Earnest and John confesses that in the country he is John Worthing J.P., staid, respectable and normal owner of a country estate.  When things get to boring in the country, he tells his household, including his young and pretty ward Cecily Cardew that he must go to town and deal with his fictitious brother Earnest, whom while completely made up, manages to get into all kinds of trouble.  To this end when he gets to town, John is known as Earnest and lives a much more extravagant life style.  After hearing all of this Algie, who is a bit of a lackadaisical sort, decides he wants to meet miss Cardew.  John is
vehemently opposed to this, as he does not thing that Algie is a suitable mate for his ward.  While in town, in the guise of Earnest, John has been courting the glamorous Gwendolyn Fairfax and asks her hand in marriage. She readily agrees, but her overbearing mother the formidable Lady Bracknell who puts her foot down when she learns that Earnest/John has no real history other then he was found in a handbag in a train station and was adopted by Mr. Worthing.  John decides to go home and tell his household that his wayward brother has died and he will no longer need to go to the city.  Algy meanwhile decides to utilize his own fictitious friend Bunbury, who he claims is an invalid in the county to go pay a visit to the young Ms. Cardew.  We find our little Cecily in the garden, writing in her diary and filling her head with all sorts of romantic thoughts.  Algie, pretending to be Earnest arrives and woo's Ms. Cardew and secures a promise of engagement from her.  Ms. Fairfax arrives to talk to John...whom she still believes to be Earnest and runs into Ms. Cardew.  One of the funniest exchanges I have ever read occurs, with much confusion over to who is engaged to who, and which Earnest is which.  In the end the truth is revealed and both John and Algie officially change their names to Earnest to please their lovers and they all go off to live absurdly and happily ever after.

I cannot do justice to the absolute absurdity and humor of this play justice.  It takes the most ridiculous aspects of society and turns them into fodder for the audience to laugh at.  It is a fairly simple play, as in it has a minimum of characters and settings and is very easy to follow.  I have seen this play performed many times, been in it a couple of times, and even like the movie version with Colin Firth (of course Colin Firth is probably the reason I like anything I watch).  I love stories about
mistaken identity, when the premise is plausible, and while silly, all the events in this play could technically happen.  I also love love love the dialogue.  It is the height of...well I know I keep using this word, but it's the best one, absurdity.  The back and forth between Ms. Cardew and Ms. Fairfax is hilarious and just insane.  This play is not one about morals, or good and bad, or a great love overcoming all odds.  It is about a bunch of people who think they are smarter then they actually are, who get themselves into minor trouble, and then quickly get themselves out again.  All the misunderstandings are almost entirely the fault of the men in tricking the ladies...but also a bit on the ladies for swallowing every single story the men tell them.  There is no real bad guy, no real good guy, just a fun, silly story that highlights certain aspects of a particular society.  I love it.  I give it 9 out of 10 German Grammer Books.
Do you consider plays as books?  What is your favorite play?  Do I get utterly incomprehensible when I get gushy?