Stirring up controversy: Harry vs. Bella

I can feel a backlash coming even as I write, but decided to pose this idea anyway. I know there are a lot of Twilight lovers out there, and I'd especially like to hear your opinion on this. I have only one request if you respond: please don't kill me.

Most of you know I started reading the Harry Potter books a couple of years ago and fell in love with them. Since a lot of Harry Potter lovers also seem to be Twilight fans, I decided to try those books as well and read Twilight and New Moon, but so far I'm not hooked. At first I thought it was mainly because the Twilight books are first and foremost about romance. I enjoy a good love story, but I frankly don't want descriptions of the hero's godlike perfection to be the main focus of my reading material. (Like I said, please don't kill me.)

But then I realized that something else bothers me--and this is where the main comparison between Harry Potter and Twilight comes in for me. And this isn't about something fluffy like romance. It's about the very big issues of death and immortality that are the focus of both books, but in different ways.

In the final Harry Potter book, Harry finds his parents' graves, and there's a Bible verse carved on the headstone: "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." Considering the rogues that raised Harry, he hasn't exactly had a church upbringing so he doesn't recognize this as a Bible verse and is disturbed. He tells his friend Hermione that the idea sounds like something the evil Lord Voldemort's followers (aptly named Death-Eaters) would say. These bad guys are all about defeating death and achieving immortality through any means--dark magic, murder, power, whatever. But Hermione explains to Harry that the verse doesn't mean overcoming death their way, but is about living on after death.

In the Harry Potter books, it's clear that physical, earthly death is not the worst thing. And living forever on Earth is not the best thing. The best thing is love and overcoming darkness. In the very first Harry Potter book, an alchemist has developed The Sorcerer's Stone, which has allowed him to live for hundreds of years so far and will keep him alive indefinitely. But when the alchemist learns that Voldemort is trying to acquire the stone and use it himself, the alchemist destroys the object and calmly prepares for death.

There's another symbolic object in the last book--one of the Deathly Hallows, as a matter of fact--that could possibly be used to bring people back from the dead. When Harry first hears of this, he has an intense longing to find that stone, so he could bring back his parents and other loved ones he's lost. By the end of the book, Harry has the stone, but he has learned that using it this way would be a terrible mistake. Instead, Harry uses the stone in an amazing way, that affirms love and sacrifice and "living beyond death."

Which brings me to Bella and Twilight.

From the time Bella learns of the Cullens and Edward's true nature, she longs to become a vampire. She's obsessed with living forever on Earth with Edward. She comments that she's not interested in heaven if Edward's not there. I found this disturbing when I read Twilight, but I figured this was just the set-up. Eventually Bella would come to her senses. Maybe they would find a way to help Edward and the Cullens be "cured" of their vampire state and returned to normal, mortal life.

Because let's face it. Even though the Cullens have a kind of immortality, at least in my humble opinion, they're not exactly living an earthly Paradise. Though they've chosen not to kill humans, it's a constant temptation--to the point of their having to be careful not to lose control and kill their beloved Bella. Would any of us really voluntarily take on a condition that would make us struggle not to hurt or kill our loved ones at any moment?

Frankly, I don't even relish the Cullens' way of having to rip apart animals and drink their blood for nourishment. Or never being able to sleep. (Yikes, definitely not my idea of paradise!)

I admit I've stopped reading after New Moon. But from what I heard, Bella's becoming one of the undead and achieving this kind of immortality remains the goal. So maybe she gets to live with Edward forever, but at what cost?

Accepting that sort of earthly life for eternity is just not a goal that I can identify with, and hence my trouble with Twilight. I frankly don't see Harry going for anything like that either.

So now, Twilight (and Potter?) fans out there--tell me what I'm missing.

But please don't hurt me.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman: A Review

About a week ago, I first heard about The Magicians by Lev Grossman, and then it seemed to be everywhere. It arrived in our current fiction section at the library, and another librarian brought it to me so I would have the first turn with it. She thought it sounded like my kind of book, but I'm so bogged down in my reading that I waved it away.

Then I read an enthusiastic review of it in a blog that I follow. Then on another blog. Suddenly, I just had to read it. I couldn't wait to get my hands on it--although, of course, it had been checked out by then. So I downloaded the audio version.

I couldn't wait to start listening. I zipped through the first sections and was hooked. I couldn't wait to get further into it.

Somewhere along the line, things changed. I realized I couldn't wait to be done with it and try to forget it. Hopefully I wouldn't need therapy.

So what's the story about that made me so anxious to read it?

Here's what I heard. It's about a young man named Quentin Coldwater who's about to graduate high school and go to college--probably Harvard or somewhere Ivey League, because he's brilliant and competitive. He's also very unhappy and can't seem to find much meaning in life. One of his main joys since childhood has been reading fantasy books, particularly a series about a land called Fillory--which is more or less exactly the same as Narnia. As they say, only the names have been changed, probably to protect the author from a copyright suit. Quentin knows he should be growing up and letting go of such dreams and longings for Fillory and magic, but he can't seem to do it.

Then suddenly, something bizarre happens. Quentin receives an invitation to an exclusive, secret college of magic. Yes, if you're thinking Harry Potter right about now, the author probably expects you to. There are lots of similarities between Brakebills College and Hogwarts--except that Hogwarts is a magical, delightful place that children of all ages dream of going to, and Brakebills is a depressing, difficult, and frankly perverted place that this child, at least, wouldn't be caught dead in.

So. Quentin discovers that magic doesn't make him happy any more than his previous life did. Then he graduates from Brakebills and because of his magic, can pretty much do anything with his life that he wants to. He chooses to drink, carouse, and cheat on his girlfriend. He's not happy, you see.

The book was frankly making me unhappy, too, at this point. Remember Kristi's post about Revolutionary Road? It felt like that, only with magic. But I stuck with it, because I'd heard what was coming in Part 3 of the book, and I thought the payoff would come. I knew that Quentin would discover that the land of Fillory was real, and that through his magic, he could actually get there. There was even mention of the fact that one of the Chatwin children in the Fillory series (like the Pevensies in Narnia) had disappeared at the end of the last book. Because the author died before writing the next book, no one knew what had happened to him. So the logical assumption is that Quentin will go on a quest to find the missing Martin Chatwin.

Finally it happens. Quentin and his friends are off to Fillory. And they do find Martin Chatwin, only they weren't particularly looking for him. As usual with Quentin and his bunch, they don't really have a purpose in going there any more than they have a purpose in the rest of their lives. As the Fillory ram Ember (a disappointing stand-in for the great lion Aslan in Narnia) tells them, Fillory is not a theme park for them to come play dress-up in--because that's the flip way they are treating its struggles and wars, and the possibility of becoming kings and queens there.

The whole Fillory expedition is a disaster. And--I'm sure you'll find this shocking--Quentin is unhappy there.

That could pretty much sum up this whole book: "Quentin is unhappy." He never really gets happier--but my mood had certainly plummeted by the end of this book.

I'm trying to figure out why people I respect are writing that this is such an important book. Maybe it's one of those literary things I don't understand. John Granger, whom I respect and who wrote Looking for God in Harry Potter, goes on about the importance of The Magicians because of its attempt to merge the post-modern novel (like Catcher in the Rye) with fantasy. But then, a lot of what Granger and other literary critics say is over my head.

I understand that Grossman is trying to say that our fantasies, even if they come true to the letter, won't make us happy. That kind of joy has to come from somewhere else, somewhere inside us. I agree on those points. In fact, one of my works that has been in progress for decades has that same general theme.

The trouble is, Grossman points out that fulfillment of our fantasies won't make us happy or give us purpose, but then he doesn't seem to have a clue what will. Quentin is worse off at the end than when he started, because he's tried everything, and everything has failed him. True, at the very end, Quentin is finally ready to use magic again and to go on another magical adventure, but frankly that came out of the blue and seemed tacked on. I couldn't find any evidence of a change of attitude or any particular self-discovery. And if you're looking for anything spiritual, well...forget about it.

We've mentioned on this blog before that C.S. Lewis has identified our yearnings that come from fantasy as a longing for the eternal. Since Grossman doesn't seem to believe that, we're left with a yearning after nothing, as meaningless as Quentin's life. But then, Grossman may not think much of C.S. Lewis and his ideas, anyway. He certainly didn't make the Lewis stand-in character (the writer of the Fillory books) very admirable. The old man stole the Chatwin children's stories for his personal gain and was "diddling" one of them. Apparently, trying to hide from the man's perverted advances was what led to the child's hiding in a cabinet and discovering the passage to Fillory to begin with. Ick!

So what am I missing? Why do people who enjoy fantasy still seem to like this book, when it came perilously close to ruining Harry Potter for me--and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to look at Narnia the same way again.

I was listening to The Magicians audiobook on my iPod, and when it came to the end I couldn't move for a minute. I was stunned. That was a good thing, because the iPod promptly started playing the next audiobook in line. It was a book called Peter and the Starcatchers that I downloaded weeks ago because it was on sale and because it was narrated by Jim Dale, the fabulously talented narrator of the Harry Potter audiobooks. Suddenly, there was Jim Dale's cozy voice starting a story about Peter (destined to become Peter Pan) boarding a ship called the Neverland to start his fantastic adventures. I felt myself starting to smile.

Thank goodness for Jim Dale!

Little Fish Updates

Sorry it's been such a long time since I posted. You can blame part of that on Robin, who demanded that I fly back to Georgia for a visit week before last. Part of it you can blame on me and my weakness for not being able to decide between twenty different projects and trying to work on them all.



I do want to thank Robin for flying me back. We got to see the the new Harry Potter movie at the midnight premier (and once more after that while I was there). It was excellent, and the crowd was really into it. I dressed as Molly Weasley, who if you don't know, is the mother of the seven red-headed children, including Harry's best friend Ron and his future wife Ginny. She's such a fun character to dress as- I like to intimidate people and call them "dear" (only while dressing as Molly, of course). I also had a wonderful trip spending quality time with my parents and grandparents, and seeing some old friends. And I thank the Lord the flights went well! I am not crazy about flying, and this was my first time since before the terrorist attacks in 2001. This week, though, I was back in good ole Southern California and had to work a lot to make up for missing work the week before.



Something else which has kept me occupied since I got back was the deadline looming over me to finish a spec script for the Warner Brothers TV Writer's Workshop. A spec script is a script for an existing television show, and the one I wrote is for The Office. After a lot of last minute revisions this week, I was able to send in with my application what I feel is a solid script. Thank God! It was harder than I thought it would be, writing for an existing show. You have to know the show's history and characters very well. If I get into this program, it will be amazing, because they accept about 10 out of roughly 1000 applications per year. The program is a workshop every week for about 9 months, which is supposed to be a major stepping stone to television writing, so we'll see what happens. Prayer would be appreciated. Thanks!

Make-Believe Characters and Our Characters, Part 2

I recently purchased Jeff Gerke's e-book bundle called The Writer's Foundation, which includes How to Find Your Story (to help develop plots) and Character Creation for the Plot-First Novelist (self-explanatory). The character creation tools make use of a book called Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey, which has personality tests and information on the temperament types made famous by Myers-Briggs.


So far, this is a great help in developing more complex characters, but I've also found myself in Keirsey's pages. I took the test and turned out to be an Idealist (big surprise). One of the things that interested me most was this type's relation to story and characters.


Remember my recent post about how obsessed I became with TV and movie characters when I was young? And about the common thread I found in them--that all appeared to be ordinary folks but had some secret that made them larger than life? I wondered if that was a reflection of my desire to be discovered to be someone special, someone greater than the geeky kid I appeared to be.


Well, according to Keirsey, the Idealist's greatest desire is for recognition--not in the sense of gaining awards or commendations, but recognized for who they are as individuals. They want other people to look inside them and acknowledge what makes them unique.


There's a section on the four major temperament types as children. Here are some of the quotes about the Idealist child. "Idealist children want to be recognized as unique individuals...they often find themselves out of step with their classmates [and] take some comfort in feeling that they are like no one else, one of a kind, as if special or singled out."


And then Keirsey goes on to discuss their love of fantasy. "They are romantic in the sense that, as they look for their unique qualities, they are apt to identify with characters in stories...In elementary school, [Idealist] kids love stories of the medieval era, of knights and their ladies, of princes and princesses, of dragons and wizards."


Well, given my current Harry Potter fascination, I would say that doesn't end with elementary school. Although perhaps it should. Nah, it's too much fun.


But guess what? At the beginning of the series, Harry thinks he's just a downtrodden orphan, penniless and living off the scraps from his horrible relatives, the Dursleys. He always feels there's something different about himself but doesn't know what. Then he discovers not only that he has magical powers, but that in the wizarding world, he's famous! When he was just a baby, he was responsible for stopping the evil Lord Voldemort. He has a vault at the wizarding bank full of gold left to him by his parents. When he arrives at school, everyone has heard of him and his special story.

Sigh...obviously I haven't changed much over the years, have I?

Robin's Deep Dark Confessions Part II

In my last post, I promised to let you in on what got me out of my creative slump last year. I told you that it might shock some of you. Here's a hint: it was nothing short of magic.

Right after I realized that I had lost interest in my writing, I reached another nasty conclusion. I had even lost interest in reading!

Well, that was just going too far. Maybe I could give up writing and live a somewhat normal life, but do without reading? I had always been the type that reads obsessively. Once I started a book, I had to finish it. I would stay up until the crack of dawn, make myself late coming back from lunch hours. Yes, I've even been known to sneak out a book in class and surreptitiously read it under the desk while the teacher lectured. Even if I could manage to separate myself from a novel physically, my mind tended to drift back to that world.

But not anymore. Not only was I apathetic about the stories I was making up, but I wasn't all that excited by what the pros were writing, either. I was still reading books, but I was having to schedule reading sessions like a chore. Even if a book seemed fairly enjoyable while I was reading it, I had no trouble ending the session and moving on to the next activity. Reading was okay, just sort of ...blah.

Something had to be done.

It didn't take me long to realize that a major problem was my selection of reading material. There was nothing particularly wrong with any individual book, but they were all pretty much the same. I was reading mostly genre fiction written in the past couple of years. I was choosing books because they were popular or were selling well, so I read them to try to learn from them--under the theory that then I could be popular and sell well, too. The voices and the stories began to sound the same. It was time to shake things up a bit.

A few weeks before my mid-life creative crisis, I had been to the American Christian Fiction Writers Conference. A big topic of conversation there (and at the library where I worked, and almost everywhere else in the world) was the release of the last book in the Harry Potter series (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows). I didn't necessarily care what the rest of the world had to say, but I was fascinated to hear Christian writers and editors so passionate--and so divided--over a work of fiction.

I heard a good Christian woman denounce the series as unhealthy interest in the occult while another lady behind me was bouncing on her seat, wanting to protest. I sat at a lunch table where the subject came up, and one conferee said he liked the Harry Potter books but really wished there was more religion in the world that Rowling created. The editor at the table, someone I admire very much, declared that Deathly Hallows was in fact a very Christian book in its themes.

Now, I had spent years avoiding the Harry Potter books. I figured that a series about educating children at a school for witchcraft was not for me. But now, I at least wanted to take a look.

I started checking out the audio books from the library, and in about ten minutes was hooked. Seldom have I ever encountered a fictional world so inventive, so full of wit and humor and fantastical detail--and yet so homey. How was it possible to create a school of magic set in a medieval castle, with unicorns and centaurs in the forest and mer-people in its lake, that felt so familiar? Probably because that castle was filled with people I was sure I'd known in my own life. People so real that I raced through the entire seven-book series to see what would happen to them--because Rowling's world can also be a very dangerous place, particularly by Book Seven.

I still understand why some folks want to avoid books that have witches and wizards as the main characters. I myself wish Rowling had used some other terminology, but other than that, I didn't find characters any more offensive than Glenda the Good Witch in the Wizard of Oz. Somewhere during the experience, however, I did rediscover my own imagination.

Not only did I have fun imagining what was coming for Harry and friends, but I found myself daydreaming, starting to rewrite my own stories in my head. For years, I'd been caught up in things like point of view shifts and short paragraphs and active voice. Now, I was finally getting caught up in my stories, in my own little boys and their heartaches and struggles and magic. I started getting excited about making my own worlds so magical and homey, so dangerous yet sunny. And as far as genre--well, editors and agents have battered me for years with the rule that I've got to pigeon hole my stories into one genre and its guidelines. But Harry? Where does he fit? Book One is a children's book, Book Seven? Whoa!

Again, I'm not telling you to read Harry Potter or anything like it if you're uncomfortable with the idea. But I'll always be grateful to J.K. Rowling for helping me get my own magic back.

Oh, and what does all that have to do with why I started this new blog? Well, a couple of things.

First of all, I not only fell into the Harry Potter trap myself but I took Kristi along with me. We had so much fun going through that series together (with me a few books ahead)! I think that series sparked both our imaginations, and led us into discussions that turned up fascinating and important questions for a hopeful novelist and a Little Fish about to try her luck in the motion picture industry.

How can a serious Christian discern what they should or shouldn't read? Watch on TV? Act in?

How can our imaginations be used to point readers to God and glorify him? Why did C.S. Lewis think that our desire for fantasy reflects a desire for the eternal? How could we learn to write works that will reflect God's truth while tapping into those desires?

And so we started this blog. And that, as they say, is the rest of the story.

Or at least, it's the beginning.

Harry, Me, and Graves for Our Friends

My dog died last Wednesday. He was going to be thirteen this month. I had had him since he was a puppy. He was there with me through so many moves I can barely count anymore, through a divorce, through highs and lows, goods and bads, all of it. His constant little presence was a source of reassurance to me so often- love, loyalty, and friendship without judgment. He was a Yorkie and his name was Rocco.

He was going to be my little California dog soon. He was going to take the long trip West with me- he would have seen the Grand Canyon, and maybe the Hoover Dam. My roommate, Claire, said that we had been through a lot of adventures together, and that he just wasn’t up for the next one. I think she was right. But mainly, I think the good Lord spared Rocco and me from many ends which would have been worse. If this had happened in California, I could not have buried him at my family’s house. I am thankful I was able to bury him at the house where I grew up- somewhere I should be able to go back to and where I can visit his grave in the foreseeable future. I am so thankful that I did not have to make the decision to have him put down. I just came home Wednesday night, and he was gone. He had been showing signs of age, but he seemed to feel fine for the most part, and it happened very suddenly. I am so thankful he did not suffer. And I am thankful I have my family still close to help me through this.

As I said, I buried him at my childhood home. My father was out of town, so my Uncle Donny helped me. I had been so exhausted, having not slept much for the couple of preceding nights, and did not think I was up for much physical labor. When I got to my dad’s house and met my uncle, though, I found myself WANTING to do the work. I knew I could not do it all myself, not properly. I wanted to bury him beside a small holly tree, and that meant having to contend with roots. I was not strong enough to break through those roots, but Donny was. Thankfully he was there to handle that.

The rest, though, I wanted to do, so Donny found two shovels, and I dug as much as I could. As I worked to break through maybe 2 ½-3 feet of dirt and red clay, I could not help but think of a scene from a book which moved me greatly when I read it, but which came back to me with a greater depth of significance when I thought of it as I helped dig Rocco’s grave. Does that sound strange? I was certainly dealing with the harsh reality of the situation, but even while living in that, my mind went to this fictional scenario in which one of my friends- a fictional friend- dug a grave for someone dear to him.

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILER ALERTS AHEAD. IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE HARRY POTTER SERIES AND WANT TO, YOU MAY WANT TO STOP READING NOW. IF YOU DO NOT LIKE THE HARRY POTTER SERIES, YOU MAY NOT LIKE THE REST OF THIS POST.

DISCLAIMER: I understand the Potter series is a controversial one among Christians. I know wonderful people on both sides of the issue, and am not writing this post to start a debate over whether or not Believers should read fairy tales with wizards and witches as protagonists.

Now that is said, the two of you who are still reading this will hopefully understand some of the connections I want to make. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the last book in the series, Harry has to bury one of his friends. This is not the first friend, nor is it the last, he loses in the fight against Voldemort. But this is the only one that Harry, himself, buries. It is Dobby, the house elf, who gave his life to save Harry and others.

Since the second book, Dobby had become a loyal helper and friend to Harry. He was small, and he was greatly abused by the Malfoys, his former owners. In the Chamber of Secrets, Harry secured Dobby’s freedom from the Malfoys, which also meant his freedom from abuse and a life of misery. But even before that act, Dobby was loyal to Harry. He stood by him throughout the series, though not always at the forefront. You just knew that somewhere, Dobby the house elf was nearby, and would show up at some point when Harry needed him the most.

Unlike the funeral of Albus Dumbledore, a grand, standing-room-only affair held on the grounds of Hogwarts at the end of the Half-Blood Prince, Dobby’s funeral is held by Harry and a small band of fugitives in hiding. Harry and his best friends, Ron and Hermione, are on the run from the tyranny of the evil they are fighting, the same evil that just killed Dobby, and must bury their small friend at the safe house where they are taking refuge. Harry wants to dig the grave for Dobby himself. He refuses to use magic to do it, but wants to honor his friend by expending his own energy and sweat in a labor of love.

At this crucial point in the story, Harry has been struggling with a choice- does he proceed upon a path of faith, or upon a path of fear? It is through his efforts to secure Dobby’s laying to rest that he is finally able to see clearly, and make the choice of faith.

He took responsibility for his friend. There was no one else to do it. Dumbledore had many friends. Dobby had only Harry. And in the end it was his love for Dobby, and his efforts on his behalf, which helped lead Harry to choices which, when all was said and done, conquered the evil which threatened the world. Life from death. Salvation from sacrifice. Remind you of anything?

Finally, I wonder what is it we can see in fictional scenes that we cannot see when we are going through similar events in our own lives? One answer is beauty. There is a beauty in such poignant scenes which we cannot see or feel when we are facing the real sadness of loss. In this case, does fiction become more truthful than what we call reality? I tend to think so. In such times, we may be blinded by too much reality, and cannot see the objective Truth fiction can show us at times, the Truth revealed by our involvement in a scenario which is close enough to affect us to almost Otherworldly yearning, but which is distant enough to not BE us. Digging a grave for my dog is not going to save the world, I know, but through Harry’s and Dobby’s experience, I was able to appreciate a beauty in my last moments with Rocco that I would not otherwise have known.

Thank God for fiction!

And thank God for Rocco! He was a truly wonderful friend.