I recently signed up for a free course over at Coursera - Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World. For anyone curious about how this course works, I thought I would do a little description of my experience so far, with my understanding of what will happen in the upcoming days.
The first session started last Tuesday and our first homework (a short analytical essay about Grimm's Fairytales) is due this Tuesday. Afterward, peers will grade the essays and the professor (Eric Rabkin from the University of Michigan) will post a lecture about the week's unit. Peer feedback is due by Thursday, at which point the submissions for the next assignment will open.
The lecture happening after the writing assignment is a mixed blessing. This keeps the students' work from being influenced by the professor's views on the piece(s). Whereas I typically have a better time generating essay topics via interactive discussion, the online course doesn't offer quite the same kind of environment. There are, however, forums set up and a lot of active discussions on them. I have posted to a couple of threads, but not entered into any conversations yet.
Next week's unit is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. (It just so happens that I picked up this book as part of my summer reading and started reading it a couple of weeks ago.)
The course will continue unfolding with the same structure, moving through the different texts in the syllabus: Dracula (Stoker), Frankenstein (Shelley), Stores & Poems of Hawthorne & Poe, The Island of Dr. Moreau/The Invisible Man/"The Country of the Blind"/"The Star" (Wells), A Princess of Mars & Herland (Burroughs & Gilman), The Martian Chronicles (Bradbury), The Left Hand of Darkness (LeGuin), Little Brother (Doctorow). It's a pretty hefty reading list, but I'm going to do my best to keep up with it, in addition to starting the Fall semester. (Of course, I'm taking a literature course there, too.)
And in September? I'm looking at also taking Modern & Contemporary American Poetry taught by Al Filreis from the University of Pennsylvania (still on Coursera). It is another 10-week course.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Judging A Book By Its Cover
"Never judge a book by its cover" - this advice is meant to apply to more than just books and I've had success using it in my daily life. When it comes to books, I stand with it in spirit. In truth, however, I'm completely guilty of looking at a book's cover and moving on without giving its content the time of day. This case of hypocrisy is one I revisit now and then, and try to examine to see why I would proliferate this advice when I'm not entirely willing to follow it for myself. (I guess it's not unlike MOST advice in which we all traffic.)
Window Shopping
I'm no expert on the concept of cover design, or what makes things "pretty" - I only know what catches my eye, and what doesn't hurt it. Even when I'm not shopping for anything in particular, some aesthetics demand to be seen. For books, this means their spines need to be legible and attractive. Believe it or not - those plain black spines with plain white san serif fonts have a better chance of getting me to pay attention than the busy ones with script fonts. (A good title doesn't hurt here, either.)
When confronted with the facing cover, I have a soft spot for fantasy inspired art. At the same time, I like a simplistic framing device more often than a full-cover style.
The old Dragonlance novels, for example, had great cover art by Larry Elmore, but also a solid cover framing that allowed the title and the Dragonlance branding to present themselves without interfering with the art or looking too busy. When the publishers wanted to update the look of the books, they went to full cover art. I like those copies distinctively less and will go out of my way to find second-hand Dragonlance novels just for the older covers. Since that time, they did go with a compromise on the two styles, leaving a solid bar across the top and on the bottom, but switching artists (to Matt Stawicki).
Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné series also had a plethora of different cover styles. You can see them: Here. My favorite is the Gould series from 1983, followed closely by Yoshitaka Amano's Japanese covers the following year.
It may sound like I don't enjoy full-art covers, but I do! It's just a little harder to catch my eye with them. Especially in fantasy & science fiction - they all start to look the same after a while.
From My Shelves
First, the plain cover. This book had a dust jacket at some point, but I picked it up in a secondhand shop completely naked. This is Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, part of The Modern Library published by Random House, Inc. in 1972 (renewing the 1944 copyright, it says). Aside from the content (which is my true love, here), I love a plain cover. Gold lettering? Even better! Wide enough to display the title so I don't have to tip my head to read? We have a winner.
Next, the simplistic cover. Never mind that this is Stephen King (one of my favorite storytellers). I am in love with this cover aesthetic. This reprint of The Eyes of the Dragon was done by Signet Fiction (a part of the Penguin Group (US) Inc.) as part of a massive reprint of King's works, in the early 2000's (there's no reprint date on the copyright page, and different pages provide different reprint dates but most range from 2001-2004). In fact, my first large purchase of King's books came with this reprint line because I loved the covers that much. They are easy to read, they give a kind of coherence to the shelf, and they aren't very distracting - while still being pleasant to the eye.
Finally, the full cover art. I spotted this book in a bargain bin (more like a shelf, and on the bottom no less) in a K-Mart sometime around my 15th birthday. I hadn't read the first books in the series (it would take a few years more for me to have funds of my own with which to hunt them down), but this cover said I had to take it home, and made promises to me. It promised I would love the book, it promised me a struggling protagonist, or a sympathetic antagonist (I got both), and a different world. It delivered.
Promises Made, Promises Broken
Speaking of promises - a cover, to me, is a window into the kind of dedication and care that has been put into the creation of a book. I understand that, by and large, the author doesn't necessarily have any sort of say over their covers (and some shouldn't - writers are writers, not necessarily very good at presenting or designing a visual aesthetic). This decision lies with a publishing company's arts department. In the case of self-publishers and small press, however, the situation rests more with the author than not.
That being said - my criticism rests on both sets of shoulders equally. I've seen big publishing houses put terrible covers on books and I've seen self publishing authors go with amazing covers.
Whatever impression a cover gives, there is a promise that the inside of the book is going to deliver on it. Bad covers promise sloppy stories, pasted together from disjointed ideas, and bound inside a cover that serves as a train-wreck of a metaphor. Good covers promise carefully drawn characters, stories that follow some sort of logic (fiction need only follow its own rules of logic, not the real world's), and care given to - if not every word - the story overall.
While these promises don't always prove true, they are still the messages being sent by the covers.
It's hard NOT to judge a book by its cover, and I think that perhaps we shouldn't always be cover-blind. Despite that, I still try - now and then - to pick up a book with a cover that I don't like, but a title that I do, and give the interior a try. I also appreciate new & different covers that move away from the traditional forms. (Silhouette and semi-abstract styles, for example.)
Do you have book cover pet peeves, preferences, ponderings?
Window Shopping
I'm no expert on the concept of cover design, or what makes things "pretty" - I only know what catches my eye, and what doesn't hurt it. Even when I'm not shopping for anything in particular, some aesthetics demand to be seen. For books, this means their spines need to be legible and attractive. Believe it or not - those plain black spines with plain white san serif fonts have a better chance of getting me to pay attention than the busy ones with script fonts. (A good title doesn't hurt here, either.)
When confronted with the facing cover, I have a soft spot for fantasy inspired art. At the same time, I like a simplistic framing device more often than a full-cover style.
The old Dragonlance novels, for example, had great cover art by Larry Elmore, but also a solid cover framing that allowed the title and the Dragonlance branding to present themselves without interfering with the art or looking too busy. When the publishers wanted to update the look of the books, they went to full cover art. I like those copies distinctively less and will go out of my way to find second-hand Dragonlance novels just for the older covers. Since that time, they did go with a compromise on the two styles, leaving a solid bar across the top and on the bottom, but switching artists (to Matt Stawicki). Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné series also had a plethora of different cover styles. You can see them: Here. My favorite is the Gould series from 1983, followed closely by Yoshitaka Amano's Japanese covers the following year.
It may sound like I don't enjoy full-art covers, but I do! It's just a little harder to catch my eye with them. Especially in fantasy & science fiction - they all start to look the same after a while.
From My Shelves
First, the plain cover. This book had a dust jacket at some point, but I picked it up in a secondhand shop completely naked. This is Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, part of The Modern Library published by Random House, Inc. in 1972 (renewing the 1944 copyright, it says). Aside from the content (which is my true love, here), I love a plain cover. Gold lettering? Even better! Wide enough to display the title so I don't have to tip my head to read? We have a winner.
Next, the simplistic cover. Never mind that this is Stephen King (one of my favorite storytellers). I am in love with this cover aesthetic. This reprint of The Eyes of the Dragon was done by Signet Fiction (a part of the Penguin Group (US) Inc.) as part of a massive reprint of King's works, in the early 2000's (there's no reprint date on the copyright page, and different pages provide different reprint dates but most range from 2001-2004). In fact, my first large purchase of King's books came with this reprint line because I loved the covers that much. They are easy to read, they give a kind of coherence to the shelf, and they aren't very distracting - while still being pleasant to the eye.
Finally, the full cover art. I spotted this book in a bargain bin (more like a shelf, and on the bottom no less) in a K-Mart sometime around my 15th birthday. I hadn't read the first books in the series (it would take a few years more for me to have funds of my own with which to hunt them down), but this cover said I had to take it home, and made promises to me. It promised I would love the book, it promised me a struggling protagonist, or a sympathetic antagonist (I got both), and a different world. It delivered.
Promises Made, Promises Broken
Speaking of promises - a cover, to me, is a window into the kind of dedication and care that has been put into the creation of a book. I understand that, by and large, the author doesn't necessarily have any sort of say over their covers (and some shouldn't - writers are writers, not necessarily very good at presenting or designing a visual aesthetic). This decision lies with a publishing company's arts department. In the case of self-publishers and small press, however, the situation rests more with the author than not.
That being said - my criticism rests on both sets of shoulders equally. I've seen big publishing houses put terrible covers on books and I've seen self publishing authors go with amazing covers.
Whatever impression a cover gives, there is a promise that the inside of the book is going to deliver on it. Bad covers promise sloppy stories, pasted together from disjointed ideas, and bound inside a cover that serves as a train-wreck of a metaphor. Good covers promise carefully drawn characters, stories that follow some sort of logic (fiction need only follow its own rules of logic, not the real world's), and care given to - if not every word - the story overall.
While these promises don't always prove true, they are still the messages being sent by the covers.
It's hard NOT to judge a book by its cover, and I think that perhaps we shouldn't always be cover-blind. Despite that, I still try - now and then - to pick up a book with a cover that I don't like, but a title that I do, and give the interior a try. I also appreciate new & different covers that move away from the traditional forms. (Silhouette and semi-abstract styles, for example.)
Do you have book cover pet peeves, preferences, ponderings?
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Reviewish: The Amazing Spider-Man
This isn't where I was thinking I would start my blog, but it seems as good of a place as any.
I realize that I may be a terrible "film critic" - a title I've never claimed for myself. Although Roger Ebert's review reflects my feelings about the new Spider-Man reboot, I keep seeing largely negative reviews from people who have issues with the soundtrack, or the deviations from the comic books, or just because "didn't they do this 10 years ago?"
I went into The Amazing Spider-Man with no expectations, except that it should be somehow "better" than the first. Let me rephrase that; I did not have an expectation that the movie should repeat, re-represent, or retell any particular aspects of the comics (keeping in mind that Marvel has had several different iterations of reality/multiverses and multiple retellings of Spider-Man's origin story) or the Raimi films.
What did I expect?
I expected a good Story; a story that showed me the development of a teenage boy who gains superpowers from a spider bite, on top of dealing with all the regular problems that come with being a teenager. Not only a teenager, Peter Parker is also a kid whose parents have left him (abandoned, even) with relatives, is a bit nerdy and awkward, and has to process very important ethical and moral questions above and beyond what at typical person must face. I expected the story to progress logically, to keep me engaged, and to resolve in a way that made sense without a feeling of deus ex machina (in a world with superheroes & supervillains, there's a lot more leeway on what acts as deus ex machina, but you can still sense a cheapness when it happens, and it usually requires an even BIGGER power to pull supers out of the fire).
The Amazing Spider-Man met and exceeded all of these expectations. Andrew Garfield was extremely comfortable in the skin of Peter Parker; his love of the character showed in his excellent portrayl of it. Peter's reactions to events in his life were believable and realistic. There were no forced-angsty moments, and when the right amount of teenage emotional conflict reared its head, the character was not forced to stay in a scene or on camera for longer than any teenager would remain in that particular situation. The movie, overall, was extremely satisfying for me, given my expectations.
Some of the nitpicks I've encountered:
Soundtrack - from my single viewing, I remember seeing 3 or 4 songs listed in the credits. Songs, not score. Of these songs, I remember ONE during the course of the movie, after an adorable but awkward encounter between Peter and Gwen. The score, however, was wonderful in the theater. It wasn't distracting, and in the quiet scenes where it became noticable, it was as fitting as the scenery.
The Suit - The suit doesn't get a lot of time in the story. There is the way in which Peter learns he should probably cover up his face if he's going to go around looking for the guy that killed Uncle Ben (spoiler alert?), there is a little research, and a very short construction scene. Some people pick at how suddenly Peter becomes an excellent sewer due to his powers. Sewing, by hand, is NOT a difficult skill to pick up. In any case, the suit is not a focal point of the story and I had no problem with it being glossed over. It didn't NEED super detail. There was no time for it.
Gwen Didn't Know - For those unfamiliar with the comics, the general canon for Gwen is that she had no idea that Peter was Spider-Man. This has been altered in the film, as have some of the events that happened in relation to Gwen, her father, and Spider-Man - and their interesting interpersonal relationships. These changes did not bother me because they made sense in the context of the film. Given the number of reboots/retellings/alternate universes that have happened in the Marvel universe, I'm surprised at how much criticism this gets. In at least one iteration, I felt the comic dragged the reveal out too long - but that is also the nature of the medium, which brings me to my next point of minor contention.
Film is a completely different medium through which to tell a story. A comic, done weekly or monthly, is set up to build up tension that will carry over to the next week, the next installment. You receive a rather small snippet of story with a lot of repetition or filler, with a major arc lasting months or even years. A movie has roughly 2 hours to give you a complete and satisfying arc. While this film could've given more time to a few moments (I personally would have liked to see more development between Peter & Dr. Connors, as well as a little more between Peter & Gwen after the climax), I didn't feel cheated.
All in all, everyone MUST make their own decision as to what they like and what they don't; my criteria makes it a lot easier for me to enjoy a good story, regardless of any source material.
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