In Word

Hello all, and welcome to my second blog.  My primary blog remains at homeschoolblogger.com/writer4im, but I intend to cross-post here to some extent, as well as put up some old posts.

~Beth

It began late Saturday night–er, early Sunday morning.  Since my parents were out for their anniversary dinner, Toni and I decided to wait up for them.  We put in a movie, and waited…and waited…and waited.  Presently I decided that there was no sense in waiting when I could be sleeping, so I promptly made myself comfortable on the couch and drifted off into peaceful slumber (albeit with the cannons of “Gods and Generals” booming in the background).

I was awakened around 12:00 a.m to the creaking of the back door as my parents entered.  Remembering that I do have a bed, I immediately got up and stumbled sleepily towards the bedroom, calling a feeble “good night” over my shoulder…but my father detained me, saying that he wanted to talk.  Now who in their right mind wants to talk at twelve in the morning?  On the other hand…who in their right mind wants to stay up arguing at twelve in the morning?  So, I plodded back to the couch and slumped down.

My father and mother then informed Toni and I, very solemnly, that they had a joint birthday present for the two of us.  It was in the back of the car if we would care to get it.  For my part, I didn’t care to get it–not now, anyway.  But strangely enough my parents insisted, so the four of us made our way out to the driveway.  On the way daddy innocently informed us that if we preferred, we could leave the present in the car until the next morning.  But as I had already woken up enough to walk outside, there was no sense in turning around…so we made it to the car and opened the back door.

“Surprise!”

Sitting there in the back of the car was…well, it took me a moment to decide, as my eyes were rather groggy.  Eventually I realized that it was Danielle, an old friend from California!  What she was doing in our car remained a mystery, but I was far too tired to be concerned with mysteries at the moment.

Whatever the circumstances that had brought her here, we all trooped inside a good deal more awake than we had been when we walked out.  The whole great secret was revealed, as well as the fact that she was here to spend the week!  We then proceeded to stay up till past one, talking and giggling.  Little did we know what adventures the morrow would bring.

* * *

Sunday morning dawned bright and early.  Much too early.  I got up shortly after eight in time to get to worship practice at nine, and we all arrived home from church around twelve thirty.  Daddy then asked if we would like to take Danielle horseback riding, which we all (excepting Danielle, perhaps) agreed would be quite fun.

Now, you must understand that Danielle is a born and bred city slicker–much like we were up until a few years ago–not to mention the fact that she claims she is scared of horses.  Normally I would sympathize with this, but when you know a person your whole life you tend to overlook such things.  So I assured her all would be well, and Buddy really is a nice horse once you get to know him.  With that we set off.

After saddling the horses, I decided to take Buddy for a quick spin to see how he was behaving.  Surprisingly there was no heading for the barn, no crowhopping, and he even picked up a nice trot when I asked him.  This is quite an achievement, so I informed Danielle that she would do just fine.

Unfortunately, Buddy’s good manners were not to last.  Danielle mounted up, and immediately upon being asked to move forward the old horse began his usual crowhopping.  After he had returned to his favorite speed (which is “stopped immovably”), poor Danielle climbed down and declared that her cowgirl days were officially ended.

Undaunted, I decided that it was now time to take the horses out on the big open thirty-four acres.  Danielle and Toni elected to take turns leading one another, since neither were very keen on the idea of riding double atop a crowhopping old Quarter horse.  With everything arranged, we left the arena and entered the wild, untamed hill country.

For some time all went well.  We were a ways off from the house and the arena, following the fenceline through the property.  We passed by a few cows in the pasture, calmly munching away.  Danielle asked if this was normal, to which I replied that they were cows.  What in the world would a cow have to do with us?

Shortly after we passed them, the cows became very vocal in their usual mooing.  I looked back and saw that a few of them wer plodding after us.  How strange, I thought.  I’ve never seen a cow move quite that fast…

It is then that we learned how fast a cow truly can move.  The small group of heifers (Danielle declares that there was a bull) picked up speed until they were in a full gallop (as far as cows go).  This would have been fine, had they been headed any other direction.

My first though was: Oh, dear.  They’re going to scare the horses.  It was followed by: Hm, I wonder what Danielle thinks of this?

After quickly dismounting to avoid any unpleasant situations, I turned around to check up on Toni, Danielle, and Katy (who had tagged along).  Toni was standing at Buddy’s head, hanging onto his neck for dear life.  Danielle had grabbed Katy’s hand and made for the nearest tree, leaving a trail of smoke behind her.  She looked to be in the act of climbing the sickly little thing, while Katy pretended to hide behind its four-inch trunk.

Meanwhile the cows lumbered past us at a great rate, mooing their heads off.  When the fearsome creatures had passed us, I ventured to suggest that Danielle unwrap herself from the tree.

The rest of our trail ride passed comfortably.  I found an open area and loped Lance (my favorite horse ever) around it as the sun disappeared behind the trees….there is something truly incredible about being on horseback at a time like that.  But before I wax poetic, I shall bring this tale to a close.

We arrived home in safety, and no one talked much about the cows until after most of the family had gone to bed.  Then, as we all sat around the living room, the subject of Danielle’s tree climbing was raised.

We spent the rest of the evening in hysteric laughter.

Everything you know has certainly changed…

But all in all, I came out of the theater (twice) feeling very good about the movie.  Although Andrew Adamson and the rest sacrificed trueness to the book for more character and plot development, I do believe it was a good trade.

Since I’m rather tardy with my review and you’ve probably read loads of others, I’ll just touch on three issues that were discussed and worried over for some time before the movie was released.  These would be…

1. The Raid
2. The Rivalry
3. The Romance

What do you know–the three R’s!

1. The Raid

As far as book purists are concerned, the night raid is a figment of the producer’s imagination and a far cry from Lewis’ Prince Caspian.  But the simple truth is that the Caspian Lewis wrote could never be successfully translated to film–there is too much walking, talking, and wandering aimlessly in the woods.  Certain liberties had to be taken in the film, and with the night raid, the producers added a depth to Prince Caspian that was absolutely wonderful.

The raid comes about after the four Pevensies, newly returned to Narnia, meet up with Prince Caspian and his small army.  Already there are rumblings of conflict between High King Peter and soon-to-be-king Caspian, but matters are temporarily resolved when Caspian agrees to Peter’s plan of storming Miraz’s castle in a bold attempt to gain the upper hand.

In short, things go awry.  It seems Peter has misplaced his trust, completely forgetting Aslan in his haste to save Narnia.  When Caspian becomes sidetracked by his search for revenge, the Narnians find themselves trapped in the castle courtyard.  While one brave Narnian holds open the portcullis, the others flee for the lives–but only half make it to safety.  Peter rides out the gate as it slams behind him, and he watches as his army is slaughtered for his own foolish mistake.

I found this scene incredibly heart-wrenching.  It takes the story to new emotional levels, and introduces the rivalry between Peter and Caspian.  All in all, I think all us fans were worried over nothing.

2. The Rivalry

The rivalry between Peter and Caspian was another new aspect of the film that had many fans squirming in their seats.  Some argued that this went completely against Peter’s character…but I found the changes very natural and quite good.  What do you expect from two kings thrust suddenly together, each wanting the other to do what he says?

After the night raid, tempers flare as both Peter and Caspian blame the other for the terrible failure.  Things go on like this until the final battle, when you begin to see the two working together to defeat a common enemy.  With the arrival of Aslan, Peter seems to be taken down a notch, and remembers “who really defeated the White Witch.”  And then, in the last scene of the film, High King Peter hands his sword to King Caspian, to return to Narnia no more.

As with the raid, I was truly pleased with these changes.  It flows very well and adds even more to the story itself–it’s easier to sympathize and cheer for flawed characters.  And through it all the filmmakers retained Caspian’s naive and sometimes child-like attitude, which seemes to be exactly what he is in the book.

3. The Romance

By now you’re all expecting me to advocate this change as well, aren’t you?

I’m not.

The romance between Caspian and Susan was unfounded, undeveloped, unsavory, and utterly ridiculous.  Given the clips we had seen in previews and such, I had expected the romance to be a recurring theme in the movie.  Fortunately (but possibly unfortunately) I was disappointed: there is a glance or two here and there, a short line towards the end, and then in the final scene–voila!–a kiss.  I knew it was coming, so I wasn’t as shocked as I might have been, but it was so unexpected given the previous two hours of movie that it’s nearly laughable.

I think that’s all I’ll say about that–in short, romance has no business being in Prince Caspian, and that particular storyline fell flat.  Let’s save it for The Horse and His Boy, shall we?

Conclusion

All in all, I would rate this movie 9/10.  The acting was superb, as were most the special effects, and overall the changes to the story were necessary and beneficial.  As a film, Prince Caspian ranks high above The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe, but for all you purists…you may want to keep your distance!

Goodness, I’ve outdone myself–a week and one day since I posted!  I meant to make a short announcement informing everyone that I would be absent over the weekend, but…I didn’t get around to it, and I think it has made itself known anyway.  On a side note, my sister is now the NCFCA regional champion in Lincoln-Douglas debate.  Run over and congratulate her!

I suppose the real purpose for this post is to share a bit of humor I stumbled across while reading a novel of Mark Twain’s: Pudd’nhead Wilson.  I had never heard of it until it arrived at our house in a box of used books, and so I immediately set about reading it (drawn, no doubt, by its shortness).  The story itself is a bit of a tragedy/mystery–it really deserves a review, which I shall perhaps write.  But for now, I wanted to post a bit of the author’s epilogue.

In this epilogue, Mark Twain begins by stating that he is in fact not a novelist, and proceeds to detail the troubles he had in writing this particular story.  This in itself is an oxymoron, seeing that the epilogue itself had me laughing!  He really was a wonderful author.

One of his problems with this story was that it simply had a mind of its own.  He writes this:

“I had a sufficiently hard time with the tale, because it changed itself from a farce to a tragedy as I was going along with it–a rather embarrassing circumstance.  But what was a great deal worse was, that it was not one story, but two stories tangled together; and they obstructed and interrupted each other at every turn and created no end of confusion and annoyance.”

Then comes the laughable part.  Finding himself with a character or two whom had no place in the story, Twain wrestled with how to discreetly remove them:

“I didn’t know what to do with her.  I was as sorry for her as anybody could be, but the campaign was over, the book was finished, she was sidetracked, and there was no possible way of crowding her in, anywhere.  I could not leave here there, of course; it would not do.  I finally saw plainly that there was really no way but one–I must simply give her the grand bounce.  It grieved me to do it…still, it had to done.”

(Here I must explain that, at the beginning of each chapter, Twain gives us one or two humorous quotes from Pudd’nhead Wilson’s calender)

“So at the top of Chapter XVII, I put a calender remark concerning July the Fourth, and began the chapter with this statistic: ‘Rowena went out the backyard after supper to see the fireworks and fell down the well and got drowned.’  It seemed a prompt good way of weeding out people that had got stalled, and a plenty good enough way for those others; so I hunted up the two boys [other characters he had no need for] and said: ‘They went out back one night to stone the cat and fell down the well and got drowned.’ Next I searched and found Aunt Patsy Cooper and Aunt Betsy Hale where they were aground, and said: ‘They went out back one night to visit the sick and fell down the well and got drowned.’ I was going to drown some others, but I gave up the idea, partly because I believed that if I kept that up it would arouse attention, and partly because it was not a large well and would not hold any more anyway.”

So there you have it: advice from one of the most famous authors of all time on how to remove troublesome characters.  Is that not brilliant?