#how is it i once again allowed myself to be surprised by how media illiterate so many people are

[bendgineer]

[moonmothmama]

ok. so. The Princess Bride. i read it yesterday.

and right up front, before even a review, i’m gonna go ahead and list everything objectionable in the book that i can recall. please don’t take the length of the bullet pointed items to follow as an indication that the book was wildly problematic and offended me at every turn; it wasn’t and it didn’t. but there were some things that made me go: 😑 or 😒, and here it all is, presented with context, before anything else, because to be honest, i didn’t expect any of it. the film is relatively spotless, which is pretty rare for that era, and if any of you are thinking of reading it, you could do with being more prepared for this than i was.

first off, racism. two passing remarks. one isn’t even in the story proper; it’s in the first whole long intro bit from the author/narrator. that takes some explanation, i suppose: like in the film, the story is presented as a book having been written by “S. Morganstern,” except instead of a grandfather reading to his sick grandson, the narrator is interjecting with notes on the original text that he has abridged. the beginning is a whole long shpiel that, in my opinion, could have been significantly pared down with absolutely zero loss to the story (which! hey! the film did perfectly! go figure!). anyway, the first racist remark is an absolutely tasteless line in which the narrator pisses and moans about his fat son, making a crack about “painting him yellow” and making him a sumo wrestler. y i k e. the other passing remark is from Miracle Max (really, truly, the film version of this scene is miles better than the book version, but contains an important plot detail, so you should prob still read it, but i’ll give you the lowdown if you wanna skip). he refers to Iñigo as a sp*ck (rather bafflingly, i might add, bc Iñigo is a Spanish man... from Spain... not a Hispanic or Latino man from Latin America. so. i mean i’m certainly not an expert on slurs but... i have never in my life heard that term in reference to a person from Spain, and am virtually certain it was invented to refer to ppl from the americas) and in the same breath uses an objectionable term for a Polish person. sooo... again: y i k e. what gets me is that... these could’ve just been edited out? why weren’t they? i mean i know why but

fat shaming! see above. though to be honest, any true negativity about fatness is restricted to the author/narrator’s interjections; there are a few minor fat characters in the story and those depictions, without being too long-winded or spoilery, didn’t offend me (fyi: i’m fat). if you want the details, please feel free to message me about it.

if we can go back to the whole long beginning shpiel from the author/narrator, it’s just... eh. he comes off as kind of a jackass, tbh. not even halfway through it i found myself more than a little impatient for the story to begin, and that could be at least partly because the film spoiled me with a lovely, not annoying, not problematic scene of Granddad Columbo reading to Baby Fred Savage where no one made any racist remarks or ragged on fat kids. the basic gist, if you want to skip it, is that the author, as a kid, had this book read to HIM by his father, who was a Florinese immigrant, and nearly illiterate in English, but still labored over reading the English translation to his American-born son, who adored the book and requested it read to him dozens and dozens of times over the years, refusing to read it himself (though he read plenty of other books). as an adult, he buys his son the book, and is crushed when the son doesn’t like it. he then reads it for the first time, and realizes his father skipped over huge, boring blocks of text. he read his son only The Good Parts. so he decides to edit that shit out himself and release the abridged version he loves so much. add into that some complaining about his wife and some extra blah blah, and that’s pretty much it.

you remember the scene in the movie where The Man In Black/Westley almost slaps Buttercup for what he believes is lying? in the book he actually slaps her. not that his actions seem supported or endorsed by the text, but still, there you are. Buttercup does push him off a cliff soon after, though, so. i wouldn’t call that ‘even’ exactly but, shrug

Vizzini, in the book, has a fucky leg and his back isn’t quite straight, and he’s referred to repeatedly as a “humpback” or “hunchback” which needless to say is Not Kosher

that, as i recall, is it. i hope i’m not forgetting anything. now onto content/trigger warnings:

alcoholism. this shouldn’t be a surprise if you’ve seen the movie: Iñigo has some, shall we say, issues

Fezzik’s parents were... terrible. CPS would be all over them. spoiler: basically they emotionally blackmailed their son into fighting professionally, which they knew he hated, by telling him they’d abandon him if he didn’t

Buttercup has some kinda messed up (read: unsettling but in no way graphic) nightmares after leaving Westley when they’re found by Prince Humperdinck at the Fire Swamp, mostly involving bearing children to the Prince who she once again is set to marry

the slurs and whatnot i mentioned above

violence, obviously. nothing worse than the film as i recall.

that’s it i think. 

okay. all that said. did i enjoy the book? yes i did. a lot.

now, you might be thinking: jesus, Kathleen, after all the shit you just listed? and to this i reply: listen. there is no Unproblematic Media, so you either enjoy some things that are flawed, or you enjoy nothing at all. there is plenty of objectionable shit in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit! fucking plenty! and i love those books! and so do plenty of other people! in my own humble opinion, the good story is worth the shitty bits, because the shitty bits aren’t like, fundamental to the plotline. the story isn’t built on offensive humor or nasty, bigoted attitudes. and they’re also not the most egregious examples of Objectionable Content i’ve come across- not by a longshot. there are levels to offense. there are tiers of bullshit. this is on a far lower tier than a whole host of other things i could mention. but if any of this stuff i’ve listed crosses a line for you, i totally understand and respect that. that’s why i’ve bothered to list it at all. imo, how you respond to objectionable content is important: you don’t ignore it or excuse it, you acknowledge and criticize it. and if you still enjoy whatever the thing is, you allow yourself to enjoy it, without getting hissy or defensive with people for whom the objectionable content ruined the book/movie/whatever. 

there you go, there’s my disclaimer for having enjoyed the book. your mileage may vary.

okay. so. review time.

Buttercup is a far more interesting character in the book than the movie, for which the movie can’t be faulted all that much, because you can’t easily translate a character’s inner monologue/unspoken thoughts to the screen, especially not with the time limit that comes with the medium of film. but watching her struggle with her feelings and life choices (and... lack thereof, since her choice is between marrying the prince and being put to death, which isn’t much of a choice, even if she tries to reason it out later by telling herself she COULD have said no... and initially did) creates far more of a bond between her and the reader in the book than, personally, i felt watching the movie. also she has a great line after Westley calls her beautiful at their reunion- she says something like, ‘everyone’s always calling me beautiful, i have a mind too, why don’t you talk about that’

Both Westley and Buttercup are immature, naive, and foolish in the beginning, and if Westley strikes you as Extra Dickish, a) rewatch the film! he did act like a bit of a dick, there, didn’t he? b) remember that in the story he’s a young man between the ages of eighteen and twenty five, which in my considerable experience is the age at which young men are generally at their peak of Asshole. sorry dudes

and not that Buttercup herself is a complete peach! she deals very poorly with her emotions in general and acts kinda shitty herself once or twice. i won’t say too much lest i spoil everything that’s different between the film and the book.

Prince Humperdinck is also a more three dimensional character; still a rat bastard tho.

onto Fezzik and Iñigo.

as i have said in other blog posts, these boys are... pretty much the whole reason i sought out the book. and... jesus. 

you get all the way into the tragic backstories that were only hinted at in the film. okay, Iñigo’s backstory was more than hinted- but of course you go so much deeper in the book- and Fezzik’s was less than hinted, reduced mostly to a peek at the insecurity that Vizzini exploits and preys upon to keep him in line. not that you’d have to expend a great effort to him to keep him in line; his personality is docile and non-confrontational. truly not the slightest bit aggressive by nature. he’s also kinda clingy and needy, which is a thousand percent understandable given his childhood, and tbqh doesn’t need to be browbeaten for Vizzini to keep him on his short, cruel leash. which makes it all the more painful! hurrah! 😭

also you actually get to meet Iñigo’s father, Domingo Montoya, in a flashback, aaaand... i kinda love him. probably predictable if you know me.

anyway. tragic backstories. which further illuminate the emotional and psychological issues that make them so dependent on Vizzini, and turn them to lives of crime in his employ. poor boys! oy gevalt. sympathy abounds; i honestly don’t know how you could go through the book and not fall at least a little bit in love with this duo, whose friendship is precious and adorable and a balm to the soul that is aching from their painful life stories and unhealthy coping mechanisms. they’re each, very plainly, the only friend the other has in the world, and are constantly helping and bolstering one another. it’s heartbreakingly sweet. i think those boys will be alright as long as they stick together.

and now, the repeated theme of the book, that is presented with far less intensity in the film: life isn’t fair. which, one supposes, is true. but while the narrator’s framing of that assertion may give you the same misgivings they gave me- bitching about his fat son and his less than ideal relationship with his wife- you can also step back and appreciate it as a wee pearl of wisdom. life is often unfair, but that doesn’t mean it’s altogether bad or that you can’t enjoy it. idk, that’s my attitude, man. 

i could talk about the ending here, but i won’t. at least not too much. not to spoiler-ish-ly. if you don’t want to know anything about the book’s ending at all, feel free to not read the last bit here, except for the very last lines which are bolded.

ready? yes? no?

...

the ending to the book is different than the movie. there is a more philosophical, open ended conclusion than you could really get away with in a movie. at least this movie.

just throwing it out there: i believe in happy endings. ones in real life. but i kind of disagree with the author a little bit, in that i don’t think happy endings necessarily have to be perfect and unblemished to qualify as happy endings. that may be the way “happily ever after” is generally presented, but to me, “happily ever after” means, maybe some shit happened, but none of it was completely devastating, and in the final analysis, life was satisfying. that’s the kind of real life happy ending i’m aiming (and hoping) for. this might sound vague but i hope it’ll make sense if you read the book.

if you wanna do that, btw, i read it for free online at allnovel dot net.

[winter-haerbinger-blog]

🐼 ＝ 🐈 ＋ 🐻

Over the past few days I’ve finally understood why I’m learning Chinese: to converse with Chinese people.

“Well, duh,” you might be thinking.

But up until this week I’ve mostly viewed learning Chinese as a game, a real life word puzzle, not unlike your weekly Sunday paper’s. See, I adore puzzles, especially language ones. Scrambled jumbles, encrypted criptoquips, punny crosswords? Yes, yes, and yes. I haven’t studied any other foreign languages so I don’t know if they’re in the same boat or not, but Chinese has the right balance of structure and imagination for me to have fun learning it as if I were sitting at my kitchen table, eating brunch in my pajamas, while hunched over the New York Times.

Chinese’s structure comes from sentence patterns, or grammatical fill-in-the-blanks. I guess English also has these, but since I haven’t studied English as a foreign language I can’t really give an example. But once you learn a Chinese sentence pattern the customizable possibilities are endless! As you acquire new vocabulary you can “plug and chug,” as my high school math teacher Mr. Callesen used to say. Come to think of it, sentence patterns are a lot like mathematical formulas, except with vocabulary, not numbers, as the input. (Side note, four of this program’s students, myself included, all study math at their home colleges. Math and Chinese have a surprising amount of similarities…)

The imaginative side of Chinese for me arises from encountering new vocabulary words and guessing their meanings. Chinese nouns are a lot more explicitly named than English nouns. A few examples, for clarification: panda = 熊猫 ＝ “cat bear”; illiterate = 文盲 = “writing blind”; size = 大小 = “big small”; intensity = 强弱 = “strong weak”; proportion = 比例 = “comparing instances”. So once you’ve accumulated enough characters in your vocabulary you can read a new text with many unfamiliar words and more or less comprehend the gist of the content. Unless you’ve intensively studied Greek and Latin roots, this is a lot harder to do in English.

I also love playing board games like Scattergories and Taboo. And since my vocabulary isn’t yet extensive I have to play these games a lot when I’m having a conversation with someone. “Apply” becomes “giving your grades and written essays to a college because you hope they will allow you to take their classes”; “fog” becomes “that white water in the sky at the top of a mountain that gives you a spooky feeling” except I don’t actually know the word for “spooky” so I make a ghost “ooOOo00o” sound effect and undulate my arms. So. many. sound effects.

My closest friends here in Harbin so far are all American students, and it’s only natural that I spend the most amount of time with the people I’m closest with. However, due to my program’s language pledge, we aren’t allowed to speak English to each other. I thought this requirement would be a lot more of a hassle than it actually is; yeah, there are struggles, especially when you’re in a horrible mood and need to angrily rant, but your lack of loquaciousness just makes you even more frustrated. I also thought that I would completely lose my personality in this foreign language, condemned to forever rehashing mundane textbook phrases. Definitely not true! People’s personalities are the same in any language they’re speaking, body language included. Sure, some jokes don’t land when you’re not yet a master of the language. But I amaze myself with how much I am able to convey and, conversely, how much I am able to understand.

So I’ve been spending a lot of time hanging out with American students, but why? I’ve already spent a vast majority of my life dealing with Americans, those who share more or less the same experiences and points of view as I do. I’m still pretty embarrassed when using Chinese with native speakers, but my recent revelation was that my Chinese isn’t going to improve if I only speak with other Americans — we all make the same grammatical mistakes influenced by our shared native tongue’s linguistic customs. So I’m trying to put myself out there more often by speaking with Chinese people. But when yesterday’s newspaper class’s homework was to ask multiple Chinese people their own views about China’s 户口 system, I was terrified.

This system doesn’t really have an American counterpart, so it’s difficult to understand. Even many Chinese people seem to not fully understand the policies and restrictions. But, from what I understand, it goes like this: When you are born in one of China’s 32 provinces (equivalent to America’s 50 states) you hold papers identifying you as that province’s resident. If you to move to another province you must decide whether or not to switch your 户口. If you hold a province’s 户口 you receive the services that province has to offer: access to schools, hospitals, jobs, etc. One American equivalent is “in-state tuition” for students who attend their home state’s public universities. But there is also a difference between urban city 户口s and rural farm 户口s. So one pressing issue today is the difficulty rural people face when attempting to move to an urban city with a higher quality of life; due to government quotas and allocations， everyone who applies for a new 户口 is not necessarily approved.

This topic isn’t your typical conversation of, “How’s the weather today?” and “Oh yeah, I’m exhausted, too.” So I was dreading asking our Chinese roommates their own opinions about the 户口 system because I knew I wouldn’t understand a single bit of their replies to this lofty subject. But I was wrong! I asked three or four people and I was able to understand about 80-85% of what they were saying! How exciting it was to be able to ask actual people their opinions, and not only rely on what I might read in the media.

Every day I am delightfully surprised by how attuned my ears have become to attentively listening to native speakers. But it’s funny, my English listening skills have also exponentially improved. When I listen to a music album I’ve heard a thousand times before (yeah, I know, language pledge: I should be completely immersing myself in Chinese, even with the music I listen to. But I only listen — oh how I miss singing in the shower!!) without even consciously trying I understand the singer’s words. I’m already disappointed by the thought of returning to America and once again being surrounded by my native language, not constantly being challenged to listen and speak throughout the day. But I’ll still be in Harbin until December, so I’m mostly just excited to see how much my Chinese can improve throughout the next five months.