Ask the Passengers by A.S. King

Evening to you!  Look how the snow falls over the dry plains of our little mountain hamlet.

So this evening I'll be discussing a book I read a few weeks ago but forgot to write my review of, oops.  Ask the Passengers by A.S. King (pun intended, no?)  tells the tale of a young girl named Astrid Jones, a high school senior struggling with her sexuality who deals with the hardships of conservative small town America, labels, love, sexuality, a pot smoking dad, and a sister and a mother who don't really understand her, and to deal with this all Astrid sits on the picnic bench in her back yard to watch the airplanes flying above as she sends her love to the passengers inside.

In a strange and lovely story about self discovery, the supernatural, the philosophical and the mundane unite as a young girl tries to figure out why the label for her love seems so necessary to other when she just wants to let her love be, both for her girlfriend, and the countless people flying above her small town every day.

There was a lot about the book I enjoyed and some I wasn't so fond of.  First of all I can't say how much I adore the unspoken magic in Astrid loving the passengers.  I think it's a fine example of the most beautifully simplistic and unquestioned kind of magic, it doesn't matter if what they're experiencing is truly magic, or if the character herself is imagining it all, and I find that very stunning.  However, maybe it's just me, but the relationship between Astrid and her girlfriend seemed borderline abusive at times, perhaps I read into it too much, but their relationship never sat right with me with her girlfriend's random mood swings from fluffy to angry, and how frequently she tried to pressure Astrid into labeling her sexuality, and trying to convince her to enter a sexual relationship Astrid wasn't ready for, a lot of these scenes just struck me as rather wrong and I found them off-putting, yet despite all these relationship red flags, (plus despite Astrid cheating on said girlfriend) the two end up together in the end without a great deal of in depth discussion about the weirdness in there relationship.

In general I really enjoyed the book and found it to be an insightful look into the complexities of human sexuality, psychology, and the maybe magic that surrounds us every day.

Total Pages: 293
Number of Flying Platypus Tea Cup: 6/10

Khaos Komix by Tab Kimpton

Happy Harvest!

Some time ago an online graphic novel entitled Khaos Komix recently finished updating, and I finished re-reading it in one fell swoop.

Khaos Komix is a graphic novel told in eight parts by eight different characters revolving around LGBTQ issues as a whole. Through the narration of each character the inner thoughts, feelings, and stories of each is revealed and they discover themselves and  fall in love.  The story takes place in England as the characters take on the fight to get them to where they want to be.

The comic, revolving around angsty youth certainly has some notable language, as well as trigger plot-lines, and some occasional sexual content.  The side stories of the comic are sometimes more graphic, but are easy to skip over and simply move on to the next character's story.  The art occasionally falters in my opinion, but the story-telling and writing is always brutally honest to each character it is being told from.  The story carries all the hilarity of friendship and misunderstandings, and all the terror of having no idea who you are and how to become the person you want to be, as well as the grief of unrequited love, and and the dismay of it being requited.

Regardless of whether one enjoys Tab's unusual art style, I feel if the reader has any experience with the LGBTQ community it would be an extremely personal read.  From the doubts experienced in falling in love with your best friend, to the bullying, and the confusion, and the bigotry it shows all the beauty and ugliness of growing up and living while questioning the worth of your identity.

I would definitely say that Amber's story and Tom's story were my favorites, though I loved all of them.  Jamie's story was extremely difficult for me to read, as was Charlie's really, just, the vivid detail Tab goes into regarding the trauma of their lives is very hard to handle, but it's a valuable read, that gives a highly personal view into the worlds of eight very different people who are so very human, in all the beautiful foibles and connotations of that word.  

Total Pages: 573
Number of Flying Platypus Tea Cups: 8/10

The Dark and The Tolstoy

Greetings muggles!



So far I'm 200 pages into the beloved classic Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.  Though I'm reading it for AP Lit it's a book I've wanted to read in general from the avid recommendations of my uncle.  So far the writing isn't my absolute favorite, but I'm fond of the story.  Thus far Anna Karenina is in a gloriously scandalous tryst with the illustrious Vronsky.  Yet there is dreadful scandal in the relationship for Anna is married and has a son.  Also in the world of elegant Russian society Levin proposed to Kitty but Kitty refused because she loves Vronsky who dumped her because He loves Anna who's married and knows a guy who cheated on his wife who knows Levin who's depressed and killing squirrels in the forest of his farm because Kitty doesn't love him and he's sick of his farm and wants to be married.  It's all very dramatic.  

As far as horror novels go I want to read King!  I haven't read anything by him but I've heard he's so completely brilliant I want to try him out.  Poe is of course flawlessly classic, though I'm more partial to his poetry than his short stories.  For the most part I'm not a huge lover of the horror genre in general because I often feel it's over done, trading in the scary for the stupid, but I adore a truly a subtly frightening plot line.  Fire Sea the third novel in The Death Gate Cycle is terrifying but so classy and so well done.  It's a genre I would like to further explore but haven't truly looked into as of yet.

I often think that the element of horror is most valuable when combined with another genre, it's almost too much in concentration, but it's a perfect and thrilling addition to other styles of writing.  The Death Gate Cycle is high fantasy, but through all of the book there are truly horrifying moments with necromancy and titans and evil creatures of the sea and the Labyrinth and alkjfgl/;kgj/;lkag I need to re-read these books I love them so much.

Happy belated All Hallow's Eve!  And for all you happy Wiccans out there: )O(

India: A Whole Other World of Words

I could tell you that India's literacy rate has grown from 12% in 1947 to 74% in 2013, but that's something you google.  Though it was only a week I spent in Vrindavan, a small town in the Mathura area of Utar Pradesh India, I've been somewhat absorbed in the country since childhood, since before I could read or even speak, though I still can't read or speak any of the languages of India.  Though Hindi is the official language, English is stated as the nation's second, and besides these Bengali, Manipuri, and Sanskrit are also in use.  It's a country of words and songs, dances that pose meaning akin to sign language using the entire body.  It's a place of stories, a place where the most popular Indian film offered on Air India's flights is "The Adventures of Vishnu", stories, and books, and poetry have been with the land for longer than most other parts of the world, yet you would be less than likely to have a chat with your rickshaw driver about the exploits of Hamlet, or the woes of Mr. Darcy, let alone the curiosities of Oedipus Rex.  But The Vedas are over five-hundred years old and have been taught for longer, and much of The Vedas is what the people are still familiar with, along with, of course, many other works of literature from India and around the world.

However, what I noticed the most about books, and reading, and stories, and language in India is that the history, the religion, and the stories that children fall asleep with and reenact in the day are one and the same.  Many could read of course, but those who couldn't were still moderately fluent in English and were familiar with ancient Sanskrit texts even if they couldn't be read.  Explaining it is difficult, but in a place like Vrindavan you go to a place, and the story is in the ground you walk on and it's told by the people walking on it.  They take the histories and stories and songs of their land to be one and the same, and you get the same feeling on the banks of the Yamuna that you get looking at The Magna Carta, except amplified, you are so close to something so old with so many emotions and stories and people that were a part of it, except in a museum you can only look, but when you're in the place you touch and smell and see the same parts of the stories you've grown up hearing.

Though their literacy rate isn't the highest, it's a nation that craves education, and loves and remembers some of the oldest epic poems in the world's history, for it's a culture that thrives on the art of telling stories to remember their history.

Challenge 1:Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins

Long time no see!  India ate me, so now for some catch-up blogging.

So I can safely say that poetry is not a genre I have read much in.  Now, I love poetry, all kinds of it.  Longfellow, Keats, Poe, Frost, you name it, but it's a rare occasion when I sit down with a book of poetry, and you know, read it.  But with Billy Collin's beautiful collection Sailing Alone Around the Room reading it was nothing but a joy.  It contains many of his more famous works including "Marginalia", "The History Teacher" and "Mad Men" with pages upon pages of his other works.

For me, a student of older poets, adoring the ballads and fireside poets, Billy Collins is a bit of an unusual poet.  I'll be frank, I'm not generally a fan of most varieties of un-rhymed poetry (Shakespeare excluded) however with Billy Collin's work I wouldn't dream of it being any other way.  His poems are conversational and thought provoking, and though it doesn't rhyme, his rhythm and diction has express  purpose that carries his words through you.  When I read him I find myself hearing this strong, kind, male voice of a perfect scholar that I just kind of make up.  Many of his poems like "Victoria's Secret" are extremely humorous, and on that subject mirror my thoughts so closely it was a joy to read, while ones like "Marginalia" make me want to cry for a reason I can't quite understand.

Maybe the reading experience would be different for disgruntled lit students who really don't care about the egg salad stains, but for a lover of words and raw exploration of the human condition such as myself it was a glorious read.  Of course there were a few I wasn't so fond of, but they too were a naked and interesting as the rest of his work.  I look forward to reading more Billy Collins in the future, and will likely bring him back out around Christmas to read under the clock in Manitou Springs, or at least that's what I'd like to do.

"Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page

a few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."

Total Pages: 172
Number of Flying Platypus Teacups: 9/10