If you have seen the Disney version of the movie, or even the newer one, you’d be surprised at what they changed. Some of the events are left out, as always happens when literature is transposed to the big screen, and the movies are based on both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, instead of just the namesake novel.

Considering that Lewis Carroll, the author, was born in the early 19^th century, the dialect of the book was understandably old-fashioned. But I was pleasantly surprised—the book wasn’t hard to understand at all. The simplicity of the language lent a natural feel to the surreal setting and events of the novel, which reads feels like a waking illusion, with the perfectly sane, random scene-switching and crazily improbable characters that seem so normal in our own dreams.

The famous trip down the rabbit hole sparks off the story, and from that point on Alice is swept up in a figurative whirlwind of rapid shrinking and growing (whenever she eats something she drastically changes her size). She meets such eccentric characters as the Mock Turtle, who sings a melancholy song about Mock Turtle Soup, the Mad Hatter, who’s simply mad, and the Duchess, who beats her pig-baby for sneezing too much. The homicidal queen screams constantly for executions, and the hookah-smoking caterpillar offers his wise but vague advice. After making acquaintance with each character, Alice moves confusedly on to the next place, the next person.

In Through the Looking Glass, Alice steps through a mirror that dissolves like mist beneath her touch, entering a slightly darker world where she meets an entirely new set of circumstances. She starts off in the Garden of Talking Flowers, where she meets the Red Queen (an entirely different person from the aforementioned queen) and is directed as to where to go. She moves throughout “squares” like a chess board, and is told that she shall become a queen herself when she reaches the other side. The looking-glass insects of buttered and honeyed toast, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Humpty Dumpty, the Lion and the Unicorn, and a Knight are some of the new characters that appear in this story. The novel ends with a haunting and thought provoking poem that evokes a subtle sense of sadness.

This book isn’t for people who read books to get emotionally involved with the characters—there’s little to no actual character development. The novels are less about Alice herself than they are about what happens to her and who she meets in the mystical world of Wonderland. But if you’re into crazy and random events that compile into a novel that reads like a mixture between childhood dreams and nightmares, it’s perfect.

First came the book…

Hannah Davis

davis.hannahc@gmail.com

A week after school started, I walked on over to the library and picked up The Road. I’d heard about from just about every literate acquaintance, so I thought it must be a safe choice to fulfill my A-option needs for Mr. Kenley’s infamous creative writing class. (If you aren’t aware, a student is required to read at least one book to earn an A, even if he received perfect scores on every assignment.)

In short, it’s a post-apocalyptic tale of a journey taken by a nameless father and his young son through a landscape apparently destroyed by an unknown, possibly environmental disaster. Little life exists. The setting is extremely bleak: the sun is obscured by a layer of ash so thick that the pair must breathe through masks, and plants are incapable of growing. What’s left of humanity has been reduced to groups of thoughtless, violent beings. Eventually, the father succumbs to an injury and dies, leaving the boy alone on the road. Three days later, however, the grieving boy encounters a man who has been tracking the father and son; this man, who has a wife and two children of his own, brings the boy to join his family.

There are not spoilers in this review; there aren’t any real shocks in the plot. The story meanders through dusty wastelands and sweet exchanges between the son and father, but there are very few actual events that take place. The two only meet a few people. Circumstances only change a few times. The story itself is composed of a series of observations, of self-reflection, and of revealing descriptions of the environment. It’s a stark work, and McCarthy likes it that way.

McCarthy, who believes there is no reason to “block the page up with weird little marks,” almost completely excluded punctuation from The Road. Stylistically, it suggests that the story with an urgent point of view, as if punctuation is too arbitrary to bother with. It’s cold. Harsh. Grey, even, if I can use “grey” to describe a novel. The story itself, because it is so bleak and barren, is effective.

It cleanly conveys the hopelessness and despair of mankind in a world of decay and violence.  Readers with a little insight can assume that McCarthy has not only succeeded in writing a memorable novel, but in making a social statement, too: there’s imminent doom in the perpetual mistreatment of our world – both societal and environmental – and the fragile infrastructure that holds it together.

Perhaps the importance of that message is what carried McCarthy into a successful (albeit drawn-out) movie deal — it took three tries to get it into theaters.

…And then came the movie

Sarah Boyum

boyum.sarah@gmail.com

In a world where the sun doesn’t shine, the remaining inhabitants cling to a sad existence, and predators lurk, good guys are hard to come by. A father and his son, traveling through this post-apocalyptic world in search of food and shelter, are likely candidates for this good guy title. Weighed down with a shopping cart of supplies, a gun with two bullets, and haunting memories of life before, the travelers search for the coastline and some ounce of humanity in the desolate landscape, always “carrying the fire.”

Directed by John Hillcoat, written by Joe Penhall, and based off the novel by Cormac McCarthy, The Road chronicles the journey of a man (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee), fighting for survival. The world they roam is in shambles; what caused this destruction is left ambiguous, leaving it up to the viewer’s imagination. The landscape portrays ransacked houses, rusty cars left by the wayside, singed cities, and rampant forest fires,  skeletons of a civilization.

The scenery, gray and hopeless, sets the tone for the story itself. The father and his son follow the road in hopes of reaching the coast, a possible haven. Food is scarce. Cannibalism and bandits are not. Where humans are scarce, predators account for much of the population, leaving the father and his son left to “carry the fire,” the last few good guys left.

The two bullets in the gun are meant for the father and his son, just in case they need to hurry death along. There are worst fates than death, the father recognizes.

For all the darkness, this film has soft moments where the characters catch a break. But the viewer waits with bated breath for the next disaster that will send the travelers back into harsh reality.

The underlying story involves the absent mother (Charlize Theron). Her role is important, despite her lack of physical presence. Rarely is she actually mentioned, and when the son asks, the father encourages him to forget her. But still, the father dreams in flashbacks. These scenes play out better times: her pregnant belly, soft features asleep on the green grass, her fingers moving across the piano keys. Also, when the world’s collapse first begins, the father remembers her anguish and suicide pleas. She is the one who tells them to go south before she disappears herself.

In the midst of this darkness, the son keeps asking for reassurance of this good guy status. No matter what, he needs to know they’ll always good guys, never eat each other, no matter how hungry.  While the son clings to this innocence, the father wields his gun, always on guard. He knows the reality of their situation and tries to prepare his son for a day when he’ll be traveling the road on his own.

Besides a story of “what if this happened…,” The Road shows a father’s fierce love for his son and the hard decisions he makes that no parent should ever have to consider. This powerful movie is worth viewing. It shows real, raw emotion, something many movies fail to include.

Information from www.nytimes.com

Photos from www.covershut.com

Games are supposed to be fun. Games are something kids will want to participate in, something they will want to win but will not suffer dire consequences from. Consequences such as death.

Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12. She supports her mother and little sister with her hunting and bartering. She has a difficult life, but nothing unmanageable. There is nothing that separates her from the rest of the citizens in District 12.

That is until the Hunger Games come around for the reaping. The reaping is the drawing of one boy and one girl, no younger than 12 and no older than 18 years old. As soon as a child turns 12, their name is entered into the drawing. From then on, each year, until they are 18, his/her name is entered. In short, the older the adolescent is the better chance they have of being chosen.

Another factor for the reaping is the tesserae. Any child that meets the age requirements can sign up for these tesseraes. Once they sign up for the tesserae their family receives a ration of grain, but in return the child’s name is entered an extra time into the reaping.

Katniss is entered into the reaping a total of 20 times, so she knows the odds are against her. She is shocked when her little sister, Prim, who only has her name entered once, is drawn. Katniss volunteers herself in place of her sister.

Katniss and the boy from District 12, Peeta Mellark, are quickly transported to the Capitol. At the Capitol they are lavished with food and other luxuries until the beginning of the games. This is where the bloodshed begins.

The sole purpose of the games is for the Capitol to prove to its twelve districts that they have complete control over them. They pick one girl and one boy from each district and toss them into an enclosed arena. Once in the arena they have no one but themselves. The kids are forced to become one with nature and survive this “game.”

The big catch is the process of winning the game. No matter what it takes, the last child standing wins. The Capitol forces the children to fight to the death, and to make things more interesting they broadcast a mandatory showing to all the districts.

Katniss at first sees Peeta as a distraction. He is too nice for his own good. The sooner she kills him the better. Until she learns of his undying love for her. They soon become the star-crossed lovers that the public learns to love.

They agree that either they both will win or neither of them will win. Even if it means taking their own lives.

This is where the first novel, The Hunger Games, ends and the second novel, Catching Fire, begins.

In the second novel, Katniss starts out with a life of luxury. The life of a winner of the Hunger Games. Until she learns about the next hunger games.

Once a person wins the hunger games, they are removed from the reaping forever. The game after Katniss wins is referred to as the Quell. The Quell occurs every twenty-five years, and it is supposed to reinforce the image of power the Capitol portrays for the districts. It is Hunger Games to the extreme. New rules are put into play and no player seems to have any chance of victory.

Katniss participates in the third Quell, which is unlike any other game played in the community. In the third Quell the past victors of the games are put into a reaping and drawn to participate in the Quell. In District 12 the only female victor is Katniss, so she is forced to play the game once more. Peeta is also drawn once more. The team is back for the games once more.

Katniss and Peeta immediately become aware that the rules chosen for the Quell are to be used to show that no one is above the Capitol. The pair is put back into the game in order to quiet the rebellions taking place in the districts. The Capitol believes that if the faces of the rebellion are destroyed, the rebellions will cease.

The biggest difference in the game is that Peeta and Katniss are the only young ones. They are playing against past victors who are either elderly or in their physical prime. They also have much more experience with the games, as many of them were mentors in past events.

The books in the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins are quick reads. As a reader, I quickly learned about this fictional setting and was immediately immersed in the world Collins created. Collins also does a great job of moving the plot by incorporating lots of action and twists in the adventure.

At first I was reluctant to read these two novels. I saw them only as another series, another set of books to add to my generation’s enjoyment of sequels. But from early on, I was cheering on Katniss and Peeta as they stumbled through their adventure.

I also was impressed by the way Collins set up the plot line. If there was ever a moment where I began to lose interest, by the next page I was once again caught up in the action.

This is a must read for any reader that reads the Pendragon, Harry Potter, or Alchemyst series. If you have no interest in getting caught up in yet another series, then definitely try to avoid reading any of these novels because you will not be able to put them down.

This was not the case at all. I could tell that from the very first line—“Until the drowned girl came to Laurel’s bedroom, ghosts had never walked in Victorianna.” So if you expect a clichéd sports novel, you are not going to find it here. You will find the furthest thing from it.

Laurel Gray Hawthorne, a 32-year-old woman, wakes up to find her preteen daughter Shelby’s best friend standing over her. The ghost takes her to the window, where Laurel sees the ghost’s body floating facedown in her own backyard pool.  Any woman who finds a dead girl in her pool is suspicious, disturbed, and of course, just plain curious. So Laurel sets out to find why this little girl, Molly, is dead.

Laurel herself is a character not typically explored in teen novels, a suburban mom married to her college sweetheart who knocked her up at nineteen. Her sister Thalia, who Laurel reaches out to in this time of crisis, adds more intrigue—she runs a firehouse-converted-theatre with her gay husband, and won’t stop digging at the fact that Shelby, or her cousin Bet from the drug and poverty-ridden town of DeLop, might be involved in the death.

The narration flows easily and seamlessly between the present, a few years past, and Laurel and Thalia’s childhood, managing to explain why the sisters think the way they do and connecting the plot of the novel to their own pasts.

Twists fill the plot of the novel. These surprises throw readers off, like when a “suspect” (in Laurel’s eyes) of the murder turns out not to be the killer, but just your regular male prostitute who happens to have been lurking at the crime scene, or when the misinterpretation of an Ouija board leads to the near death of little Shelby.

This is more than your typical Southern murder-mystery. It focuses heavily on that, yes, but it’s also a novel about finding the past, realizing what is important to you, and facing your ghosts.

If you’re seeking a bouncy-happy story in which small problems are tidily solved and things are happily-ever-after in the end, look elsewhere. This is a complex book with a satisfying ending— not overly Disney-happy, and not purely grim either.