nominated for a canadian blog award! =)

Dude, so my blog has been nominated in the Canadian Blog Awards for Best Personal Blog 2010! That’s really fun! You all should vote so I can put a cute little cartoon beaver on my sidebar like this one but saying “best blog evar!!” instead.

Since you’re all amped up to vote in the mayoral election (right?), you should have no trouble voting for another worthy cause – gin and tonic. So refreshing!

I’ve had this blog for about 3 years and it’s gone through a lot of changes, but  it’s always been a place where I, basically, take notes. I’ve got notes on Paradise Lost here, Tom Clancy books here, lessons I’m learning in student journalism here, and my thoughts on the Calgary 2010 municipal election here. Oh, and don’t forget some sweet music, just to give you a break from reading every so often.

I write here for the sake of writing and because I enjoy it, but I’m glad other people enjoy it too! It’s good to get feedback, even if it’s criticism, because that means I can try to improve my writing. Another reason for this blog is my never ending quest to be a better writer.

So vote for me and vote often! You can vote once per day, starting today =) If you don’t vote I will send out my ninjas to combat your voter apathy. Beware the ninjas.

Also, Calgary Politics is nominated for best political blog!! I write there as well, so vote for that too!

Update: For the first round you can only vote once. For the second round you can vote once per day.

no no no no no

Did anybody watch this? It aired April 4th and 11th on CBC apparently. It’s a Ben Hur mini-series that looks awful (this is why I don’t watch tv). More sex? Useless action sequences? Messiah story completely removed? (Original 1880 title, btw = Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ). Someone confirm my suspicions so I can complain further and say things like, “What is our world coming to?” and “Where are my percocets?”

Update: AHHHHH! “Joseph Morgan had never seen the 1959 movie when he auditioned for the Ben Hur mini-series.”

*pours glass of wine*

“This new Ben Hur is a younger, sexier, more action-packed take on the story that spawned the multi-Oscar-winning 1959 film.”

*drinks glass of wine*

“There’s a whole section where Ben Hur becomes a gladiator, before he becomes a Roman noble, which was not in the original.”

*chugs bottle*

Let’s try to erase the knowledge of this mini-series from my memory. Behold, perfection:

RIP Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

So, I have never actually read one of his books. Yet. But Jurassic Park has always been on my Must Read list, considering the movie was pretty much one of the greatest things I have ever witnessed. Thank you for Jurassic Park. If I can contribute something half as awesome to the world one day, I will be content.

House of Pancakes

YES. lol.

The Rainmaker by John Grisham

directed by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Matt Damon, Danny Devito, Jon Voigt and Claire Danes

Augh. What a terrible and boring movie. And were all musical scores in the 90’s so cheesy? Worst. Ever.

Danny Devito was pretty awesome as Deck Shiffler, the sidekick, but that’s pretty much all the acting credit this movie gets; everyone else sounded like they were reading a script. Matt Damon bores as Rudy Baylor. Jon Voigt was alright, I guess, as Leo F. Drummond, the adversary, but that’s about it.

See, they didn’t put enough focus on Rudy. This guy had it rough and he was working hard. He filed for bankruptcy, was evicted, doorknocking on firms looking for a job, working late at the bar only to wake up at the crack of dawn to do yardwork. The movie, of course, lets us know all this, but just doesn’t put as much emphasis on it. I guess in a movie you can only spend so much time on one part of the plot, but that part was the reason I liked the book so much.

However, when it came to aesthetics, the characters and the settings all looked almost exactly how I had imagined them, with the exception of Donny Ray. I thought he would look far more emaciated – instead they got a James Franco look alike to talk faintly and tell us he was dying. Didn’t quite work for me.

I’m not sure how I feel about the adaptation from book to screen either. I mean, granted, scenes were omitted for time, and the scenes they did keep were hardly altered from the book…but I just felt they didn’t flow together well enough. Everything was very choppy, like the purpose of each scene was merely getting to the next scene, instead of drawing you in and making you care about what was happening to the characters right then.

But you know, I always complain that movie scripts never stay true to the book, and this one still did, so I’ll give it kudos for that.

3.5/5

The Rainmaker by John Grisham

Soooo awesome. Let it be known that next to John Kelly, Rudy Baylor is my fictional hero.

Rudy Baylor is a law student in Memphis – a city overcrowded with lawyers. He’s fired from his firm before he even starts working, so he’s stuck filing for bankruptcy, doing yardwork for rent, bartending at night and door-knocking on small firms in attempts to find any sort of legal work.

Through one of his classes, Legal Advice for the Elderly (or something like that), he picks up a bad-faith case against a massive insurance company, Great Benefit. Rudy and his client file suit – they have all the right cards, but no experience – while Great Benefit hires a team of experienced and successful lawyers to defend itself. It sounds boring, but Grisham’s characters are so engaging that you actually care about the legal paperwork.

“Mr. Leo F. Drummond may be a litigating wizard, and he may have countless minions at his beck and call, but I, Rudy Baylor, have nothing else to do. I’m bright and I can work. He wants to start a paper war with me, fine. I’ll smother him.”

“…And if I get tossed in the street, it’s happened before. I’ve managed to land on my feet.”

Rudy Baylor possesses a work ethic I envy, and pretty much kicks ass at everything too.

This book is awesome. Read it.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, people are no longer born, but mass produced in bottles. They are manufactured and conditioned to belong to various classes and be perfectly content with whichever caste they were created for. The World State motto is thus:

Community. Identity. Stability.

Individuality is not an option, the family unit has been abolished and everyone belongs to everyone else. “No pains have been spared to make your lives emotionally easy – to preserve you from having any emotions at all.” And for those moments where natural bliss cannot be achieved, there is the perfect drug, soma. “Better a gram than a damn.” Society is stable and everyone is perfectly content and/or blissful.

Except for Bernard, a member of the alpha class with a penchant for being alone and preferring misery over soma (“I’d rather be myself. Myself and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly.”) Bernard gets the unique opportunity to visit a savage reservation – a place where live births still occur, complete with the family unit, hunting, religion, dirt and disease. There he meets John, who feels like an outsider because of his ability to read. Bernard feels like an outsider because of his ability to think for himself. For the purposes of a social experiment, John is allowed to come to civilization under the watch of Bernard.

So basically you have John absorbing this new “civilized” way of life and comparing it to his “primitive” ideas and lifestyle, while Bernard is not so loud in criticizing the world system when it gives him fame.

I think my favorite part was when John learned to read Shakespeare. Through reading Shakespeare he found the ability to define and express his feelings with words, which thus made his feelings more real. You know…let’s just go with the excerpt here. For the record, Popé is his mother’s “boyfriend.”

“He hated Popé more and more. A man can smile and smile and be a villain. Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindles villain. What did the words exactly mean? He only half knew. But their magic was strong and went of rumbling in his head, and somehow it was as though he had never really hated Popé before; never really hated him because he had never been able to say how much he hated him. But now he had these words, these words like drums and singing and magic. These words and the strange, strange story out of which they were taken – they gave him a reason for hating Popé; and they made his hatred more real; they even made Popé himself more real.”

-pg 110

I love that…the words made Popé more real. Reminds me of something C.S Lewis said: “The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define.”

There’s more things to write about here – an infinite amount, almost – but maybe I’ll write another post sometime, cause I’m tired. l8er m8s.

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski

I’m not much for contemporary fiction or anything avant-garde, however, I figured maybe I should expand my tastes and try this out. I tried. I really did. I even quit once but forced myself to try, try again. But alas, I just couldn’t finish it. Not my thing at all, and I wasn’t going to make my personal reading unenjoyable just for the sake of finishing it. I’ll save that for school.

Now, the premise is really interesting. Basically, it’s about a house where the inner dimensions exceed the outer dimensions. For example, a hallway appears out of nowhere and seems to lead to oblivion, while there are no outer protrusions to account for the new hall. The Navidson Record is a documentary about the family that lives in this house, and how its shape-shifting qualities affect their dynamics and actions.

Follow me so far? We’re going to switch stories now.

This guy… I forget his name – I’m looking through the book and I still can’t find it, so we’re gonna call him Joe – moves into this apartment that was previously rented out by an old man, Zampano, who died. Among Zampano’s few belongings left behind was a book he had written on The Navidson Record. Joe starts reading this book, which is apparently so disturbing and mind-shattering, and tries to hunt down all the people and references in it. As he does this, he adds footnotes to the pages of Zampano’s book. So we have three parts: the documentary, the book written about the documentary, and the footnotes of the book.

Another interesting thing is the design of the text in the book. This was the main reason I tried reading it, actually. I thought it was really neat. Here are some examples:

I guess the main thing that bothered me though was the third part. As Joe tries to track down the people Zampano refers to in the book, he writes down his escapades in the footnotes, which many are, in my opinion, completely pointless and gratuitous. My own personal impression of the first 100 pages of House of Leaves is a – and you can quote this – thesaurus-aided acid trip with delusions of grandeur.

I did want to find out what was the deal with the house and the Navidson family, but simply couldn’t get past Zampano’s annoying and meticulous analysis of every single glance and sigh from everyone in the documentary, and Joe’s gratuitous tales of drugs, alcohol and hookers. The book in general took itself way to seriously.

Of course, this is coming from someone who didn’t finish it. Maybe it got better in the next 300 pages, who knows? But I had more interesting things to do, like read John Donne.

Kid Rodelo by Louis L’amour

There was this kid in Grade 8 that I had a mondo crush on who always had a Louis L’amour book in his hand. So, a few weeks ago I was at my friend’s cabin and what do I see on the shelf? A Louis L’amour book called Kid Rodelo. My friend let me borrow it, and since this past week was the Calgary Stampede, I figured it would be a great time to read a Western.

It was alright, but honestly kind of boring. It was a super short book, only 150 pages, so it felt like I was reading the script for some half-hour TV show. Basically Dan Rodelo used to be a gunfighter until he left that life behind and became an honest man. He then got accidentally caught up with an outlaw and served a year in jail for a robbery he never committed, and is now on his way across the desert to find the money that was buried and return it, clearing his name. No real plot twists or surprises, although Dan’s motives for finding the money are kept hidden till close to the end. And there’s a girl – whom Dan gets. Hooray!

So, now that I know what that kid in Grade 8 was always reading, I’m probably done my excursion into Louis L’amour books =P

Prince Caspian by C.S Lewis

I’m seeing the movie tomorrow, so I figured I would read the book beforehand so I would readily be able to complain.

I’m sorry, it’s how I roll. I really don’t know what to expect…

Anyways, I’ve read the Narnia series twice before, the last time being about three years ago. Prince Caspian never quite made it onto my favorites…and now that I read it again, some things just seem odd. Maybe because I’m older and am reading too much into things I shouldn’t? Most likely.

I would mainly like to know what’s up with everyone gallivanting around with Bacchus and Silenus all the time. Edmund says something like, “That Bacchus seems like a chap who might do anything. I wouldn’t want to run into him and his girls without Aslan around.” Hmm.

Bacchus is the Roman god of wine and Silenus is one of his followers, and one of them is usually riding a donkey, I think (Fantasia, anyone?). And then some “wild girls” are with them, frolicking about.

I don’t quite understand…I think Lewis might saying that if we drink wine while God is far from our hearts or minds, anything could happen. But wine is also a reminder of Jesus’ sacrifice, and a gift for celebration – so if enjoyed within these bounds then it’s all good? Basically what Edmund said: don’t meet Bacchus without Aslan?

It just seems strange to be referenced at all in a children’s book.

Anyways, these are my favorite parts…I doubt half of them will show up on film. I remember the main thing I disliked about The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe movie was all the little lines they changed and left out – the “deep magic” and “emperor’s magic” completely disappeared! And they replaced it with something retarded like “true sacrifice.” Uh huh.

Yeah. Anyways – here’s what I hope doesn’t end up on the cutting room floor:

“And we beasts remember, even if dwarfs forget, that Narnia was never right except when a son of Adam was king.”
-Trufflehunter, the badger

“I don’t like the idea of running away.” said Caspian.
“Hear him! Hear him!” said the Bulgy Bears. “Whatever we do, don’t let’s have any running. Especially not before supper; and not too soon after it either.”

The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy – Part 2

Yes, I finished it! And wow….what a novel! I mean, it’s seriously epic! And the scale is so expansive…definitely quite a different creature from the film. I understand now why they give awards out for adapting screenplays – you can’t put everything from the book into the movie. Well, you could, but then it would be like a 4 hour Michael Bay film…and John McTiernan did just fine, in my opinion.

As stated above, the major difference between the book and the movie is scale. In the movie they tell you about the “entire fleet” and everything, but you never see it. You see like, three submarines an aircraft carrier. In the book you visit so many boats and subs from both sides that are indirectly connected to the main storyline. There’s like a 50 page subplot dealing with the air force and fighter planes. The political subplot gets more face time as the president et all discuss and try to protect the spy that gave them the pictures of the Red October in the first place.

Also, everything is super technical – and I’m not gonna lie, at times I had a hard time keeping track of everything…but for this same reason I was impressed – all the details were amazing! The amount of research that must have been needed to write this book is astounding.

Already two books in you can see how Clancy created his own universe with lovable and unlovable characters you can get to know more and more about. Patriot Games is referenced, as well as Operation KINGPIN from Without Remorse – and Pete Henderson, that hippy traitor spy that I hated from Without Remorse shows up briefly too.

I think one of my favorite lines was this, “Ryan was chain-smoking at his station, and his palms were sweating as he struggled to maintain his composure.” Just the mental image of Jack Ryan chain smoking is hilarious. Man, I love Jack Ryan.

Also, the climax was INTENSE. Two submarines smashing into each other? I would have liked to see that in the movie for sure, that would have ruled.

The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy

Oh yes. I have started The Hunt for Red October, finally. I currently am reading through the Bible, Paradise Lost and My Utmost for His Highest…I really needed something lighter to balance it all out. I do enjoy heavier reading, but I can’t just glide through that like a modern fiction book.

 

Boy, am I slow at reading, though. A friend of mine was attempting an English degree and she said it was around 1,000 pages of reading a week. 1,000 pages??? I wonder if those speed reading courses work…and if you actually retain anything when you’re finished speed-reading. One of the things I enjoy about reading is reflecting on what you’ve read and being able to impress people by quoting books and authors. ;p (You think I write down quotes for fun? Oh no, my friends, I have an ego just as much as anybody else…). Anyways, if I can speed-read and still retain the ability to reflect and impress people that will be great. Until then it’s slow and steady for me. I’m at page 116 and the book is 468 pages long.

 

So, the thing about reading The Hunt for Red October is that one of my favorite movies (of the same name) is based on it, so I reference scenes and characters in the movie all the time, instead of vice versa. I’ll read about James Greer and it’ll be James Earl Jones, even though in the book Greer’s not black at all. Jack Ryan is Alec Baldwin, Mancuso is Scott Glenn (though Mancuso’s appearance in the book is nothing close to Scott Glenn) ….you follow. I’m trying to disconnect myself from that, but it’s hard sometimes. For example, no matter what Clancy book I’m reading, Greer will always be James Earl Jones. Is that okay? Are there any Clancy purists out there that will be outraged? I feel so strongly about this that I think Clancy could even rewrite all his books with Greer as a black guy and it would be great. Okay, maybe not. I’m going on a tangent…

 

That might happen often.

Jack Ryan + Poetry = ?

So, I haven’t started reading The Hunt for Red October yet, -I’ve started Paradise Lost (post to come…whenever) and have been busy with school – but I watched the movie tonight because I needed to chill and it’s one I simply cannot get bored of.

Also (and this does tie into the first paragraph…oh yes) I’ve really been getting into poetry. John Donne and Robert Burns are of note. John Donne seems really bold and sincere (“Death, thou shalt die”) and I just love the Scottish words from Burns. And Auld Lang Syne… is seriously such a great poem! I love it!

So, if you read enough poetry (or are an angsty teen, of course), you feel compelled to try writing some of your own. And so I have. As I said, I was watching The Hunt for Red October…

Circle Trilogy = fin

Yes, it’s finally over. The famous Circle Trilogy. Sheesh.

So, White wrapped things up well enough, though I saw the ending coming a mile away. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to. There were a few unexplained loopholes too…but I can’t say without majorly giving away the ending.

Oh, and Justin. Okay, so he’s supposed to represent Jesus…but every time I heard “Justin’s bride” in reference to the “bride of Christ” I nearly shot myself. It just…didn’t sound right at all. I mean, if you’re gonna use a random common name, might as well go all the way…it doesn’t have to start with a “J.” “Elyon” being the word for “God” was a good choice…but “Justin?” I mean, it’s purely aesthetics, but it just irked me.

The main thing you come away with at the end of reading this trilogy, however, is a rather refreshing perspective on romance. The whole story is about God’s love for his creation and how he gave us romance as a picture of that love on earth. Usually, we hear of marriage as a picture of Christ’s love for his bride, but hardly “romance.” So it was nice, it gave a less frivolous perspective of truly falling in love. This quote from the first book, Black, summed it up well:

“What if I don’t want to be in love?”
“Stop that nonsense!” Michal ordered, “Of course you want to be in love! You’re human!”

Man, I loved the Roussh.

Oh, and Joshua! He could have used “Joshua” instead of “Justin” and it would have sounded way better. Why? Cause Jesus’ name in Hebrew is “Yeshua”, which basically is “Joshua.” See, that wasn’t hard at all.

Justin. Seriously.

So… it’s a pretty good story and all, but it’s not on my Top Favs. I’d definitely recommend the trilogy as ideal for 10-16 year-olds, or older if you’re like me and want to see what the big fuss over Ted Dekker is all about. I’ve gotta say I still prefer the classic Frank Peretti when it comes to Christian thriller fiction…

Some Dekker stuff

So earlier I said I wasn’t a huge fan of Ted Dekker’s writing style, which still stands, but there were still a few lines from Red I deemed worthy to write down in the Notebook of Bookdom. They’re the exact opposite of subtle, which I absolutely loved.

“These zombies floated through life as if nothing would ever matter in the end.”

“The smell of rotting flesh was more a scent of wholesome humanity than a stench.”

The first quote is when Thomas, the main character, is in traffic looking around at the other drivers. He just tells it like it is – our current culture in a nutshell.

The second quote to me was brilliant. Basically it’s set in the alternate world where the effects of sin and atonement are physically seen. In this instance, sin and rebellion are evidenced by dry and diseased skin, while healthy skin, resulting from bathing in the lakes given by Elyon (God), represents atonement…or something like that.

Anyways, so if you just substitute “rotting flesh” with “sin” you get this:

“The smell of sin was more a scent of wholesome humanity than a stench.”

…which, to me, I see is the exact attitude so many people have today. People scoff at those who hold any specific moral standards and say you’re “closed-minded” or something ridiculous, while they experience all the desires humanity offers and creates.

Oh! It’s just like Vronsky and his friends from Anna Karenina:

“But there was another sort of people, the real ones, to which they all belonged, and for whom one had, above all, to be elegant, handsome, magnanimous, bold, gay, to give oneself to every passion without blushing and laugh at everything else.”

[emphasis added]

“Wholesome humanity.” What a contradictory statement! It’s so un-subtle and brilliant. I love it.

Red by Ted Dekker

So I was pretty impressed with myself for finishing this book in a week, I haven’t done that in awhile. Some people could read this in a matter of hours, but I’m a somewhat slow reader.

Anyways, this book is the second in Ted Dekker’s Circle Trilogy, with the first installment being Black, which I read back in October. Obviously after reading the first I wasn’t in a huge hurry to find out what happened next. Dekker’s story is very interesting, verging on really cool, but I just am not a fan of his writing style and I can’t quite say why. I think it’s because if I were to write a book I could see myself writing in a similar way.

Anyways, Black was pretty good, but I’ve got a few problems with Red. First of all, it never says what specifically is wrong with the Forest People’s way of conducting the “Great Romance.” It did say a few things like, “Sometimes the Great Romance felt more like a set of rules than actual romance,” which implies that the Great Romance had become more of an outward ritual for some, instead of an actual condition of the heart. However, I felt that not enough time was devoted to talking about what had gone wrong with the it, so when Justin comes along the reader is unsure if he’s good or bad.

So Justin comes along and starts preaching against the Great Romance and speaking of peace with the Horde. Maybe Dekker wants the reader to be unsure about Justin up until the end, just like Thomas and Rachelle, but I wasn’t impressed with the method. I understood what Ted was trying to convey because I’m a Christian and know what he’s alluding to, but I don’t know how a non-Christian could even make sense of what was going on. The history and theology of the Great Romance and Justin’s teachings just weren’t given enough face time for the whole thing to read smoothly. For me, anyways.

Then again, I have one more book to go; maybe more will be explained in White.

About Lewis’ Space Trilogy

All Scripture is inspired by God. I believe that. However, Christ preached plainly but also in parables. So is it wrong to create works of fiction to better interpret truth, just as a theologian might write a commentary? No, I don’t believe so. I guess you would call it an allegory, like Pilgrim’s Progress; like Piers Plowman; like Everyman.

Thus what would be so wrong about Narnia, Lewis’ Space Trilogy, or even Dekker’s Circle Trilogy? Providing the theology is sound, I mean.

There’s one things I feel I must explain, if to myself. The “gods” in Lewis’ Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength) were not worshipped. They weren’t exactly ‘gods’ either, but Lewis used that term to best explain them. I think he meant that they are beings separate from humans, a bit above angels, but certainly not anywhere on par with the only true omnipotent God.

I doubt that there are really any of these ‘god’ entities – unlike angels. It doesn’t quite line up with good theology. The point is that Lewis took the belief of planets being entities or ‘gods’ from the pagans and reinterpreted them into entities that existed but were subservant to God, like all creation.

Lewis actually looks at things from different perspectives, instead of twisting the things to fit into those certain perspectives. As much as there are solid ideas and beliefs presented in The Space Trilogy, I find there is just as much theological speculation - questions as much for the author as well as the reader - rather than ideas and beliefs that Lewis truly believed in and was trying to convince you to believe in as well.

So…what is the verdict? There are some characters and situations that are allegorical to the “truth,” what we know, Christian theology…and then some characters and situations delve into the mysteries God has not revealed to us, such as space, entities and life on other planets. Hence, there is speculation, because that is all Lewis really could do. As far as I know, he didn’t contradict anything known about space at the time, and as far as I know, he didn’t contradict anything the Bible says about space and the entities God created (After all, vague references to “principalities and powers” leave room for discussion). Thus, if we have extremely limited knowledge on the subject, who is to say what speculation is right or wrong? Lewis merely takes advantage of this and fills with color where there is no black and white.

Character sketch: Mark Studdock

A brief character sketch of Mark Studdock, one of the main characters in That Hideous Strength by C.S Lewis.

Mark, a young sociologist employed by Bracton College, had always sacrificed whatever made him truly happy for position and the “inner circle.” He always sought praise and strategic association with those more prestigous than he. Psychologically speaking, you could say he was not very confident. Always needing association, position and recognition was what let him be so easily influenced and used by the fellows at Bracton and eventually the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E).

Mark’s character began to change in the prison cell with periodic visits to the Objective Room. The twisted and distorted nature of the room made him aware of its opposite – the “normal.” He began to regret sacrificing the things and people he truly enjoyed for the “inner circle” – his wife, Jane, and his friend, Arthur Denniston.

The climax in this change would be when he was called to “trample and insult” an almost life-size wooden crucifix. Mark realized that regardless of faith and religious implications this man (Jesus) actually existed and had been killed in this manner. The crucifix was a picture of what happened “when the Straight met the Crooked, a picture of what the Crooked did to the Straight – what it would do to him if he remained straight.”

He realized that perhaps it would always be that way, the crooked dashing the straight to peices, but he didn’t quite care anymore. His heart had been turned to embrace the Straight and the “normal” and he refused to disfigure the carving.

Then I decided to ramble on a bit more and try to peice together some main points of the trilogy…except it’s been a long time since I read the first two, so it’s probably not the best.

Without Remorse by Tom Clancy

So, I am convinced that Tom Clancy is a master storyteller. Without Remorse was amazing. Violent – yes; graphic – yes; fairytale – obviously not. 

The characters are definitely not cardboard – Clancy knows how humans work. You don’t always cheer for every “bad guy” John Kelly, kills, but slowly nod and acknowledge the justice being delivered, though at the same time you can’t help but question the vengeful motives or the methods.

Regardless, this book keeps you hooked straight through. Sometimes the length has you frustrated thinking, “Will it ever end?” not because it’s boring, of course, but because the plot is so vast that it takes awhile to explain it all when you wish you could just zoom through and find out what happens at the end. 

Without Remorse makes you grimace, cringe and fume as mixed results of anger and sympathy. It’s involving both emotionally and intellectually – otherwise I probably wouldn’t be able to tolerate a book of this graphic caliber. 

Also, it makes you really hate anti-war hippies because they seriously screw stuff up. Damn hippies. 

Apparently they are making a movie out of Without Remorse that will be out this year. They better do a good job, and they better cast a friggin’ awesome John Kelly otherwise I’ll be totally mad. 

I will definitely be reading more Tom Clancy in the future, however, next in line is Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Woot, an 817 page adventure!

Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse

I have been reading this book over…what, the past month? I started it sometime at the beginning of December. It’s 750 pages long, which to me is impressive. I can hardly imagine how someone could write for SO long and still manage to have their story captivating instead of becoming dull – yet Clancy does it. This is even short compared to the length of some other books of his – Executive Orders, for example, is over 1300 pages long, with tiny, tiny print.

So, I am not the fastest reader ever, hence this book has been taking me awhile. Plus with my part time job and school it’s hard to find time for pleasure reading. Anyways, I’m at about page 600, so I’m on the home-stretch. 

The story takes place during the Vietnam War. We are introduced to three main characters in the first chapter. John Kelly, an ex-Navy SEAL who just lost his pregnant wife in a car accident; Pam, a young prostitute hooked on sleeping pills running away from her pimp; and Colonel Robin Zacharias, a fighter pilot shot down in Vietnam, now a POW of the Vietnamese and Russians.

John Kelly is broken with grief after the death of his wife. He eventually meets Pam, though he does not know who or what she is when he falls in love with her. After Kelly finds out about her history and addiction, he helps her come clean with the help of new friends Sam and Sarah Rosen, a married couple, both doctors. The story then follows John Kelly’s various methods of exacting revenge upon the pimps, dealers and (I assume) eventually the suppliers of cocaine coming from Vietnam, who ruined Pam’s life and were carrying out the same treatment on other girls.

In the same breath, John, being an ex-Navy SEAL, also volunteers to go back to Vietnam with a team of Marines to rescue Colonel Zacharias and other American POWs. The operation risks being compromised by members of the peace movement who are Washington “insiders.”

John Kelly reminds me of Batman, to a point. He is somewhat of a vigilante, half a result of personal revenge, and half for the protection of the “innocent” citizens of society. Maybe 60-40 or 70-30 would be more accurate ratios, though.

The multiple plot arcs could all be categorized as Man vs. Man...but I really want to throw Man vs. Himself in there, though I don’t see how. The book is called Without Remorse…and so far it seems rather accurate as John Kelly goes about his personal revenge (involving one not so pleasant case of barotrauma) hardly thinking twice.

That’s the gist – though there are so many characters and subplots it would take forever to truly summarize. Dirty cops, hippies and Russians, oh my!

By the way, John Kelly eventually becomes Jack Ryan’s bodyguard, known as Mr. Clark to those in the CIA. If you’ve seen the movie Clear and Present Danger (based on the Tom Clancy book), John Kelly’s character is played by Willem Dafoe (a horrible miscast, I might add, from an aesthetic point of view.)