Lucas Blogs About Books

Oh, so we're actually doing a blog today? Well, yeah. . . . why wouldn't we? I mean, it's New Year's Eve, I figured after last week you'd find some bullshit excuse to get out of posting for another week. While it would be a lie to say that I hadn't considered it, it was more along the lines of skipping last Monday and this Monday and then posting on the Thursdays. Whatever. Did you have a good Christmas? I did. Thank you. What about you? Well, as a rhetorical device I generally don't observe holidays. With the exception of Isocrates's birthday. Isocrates? He was an ancient Greek rhetorician , I was making a joke. Well, we don't have time for jokes. I'm pretty sure that's a lie. Anyway, we haven't done a Load-Bearing Elements since. . . let me check. . . DECEMBER THIRD! I told you you'd been skimping on the work. Well, it's time to rectify that by talking about characters and, more importantly, Characteri...

Hey! The more sharp-eyed among you may notice that this isn't one of my regular features. How could we miss? Well, that aside, you may also know that today is Christmas Eve. So, I'm taking the week off from updates. Does this have anything to do with the fact that while you were sick you didn't feel like reading or writing enough blog content to maintain a healthy buffer? Does it ever! Anyway, whatever Winter holidays you may or may not observe I hope that they turn out pretty okay. That might be the lamest sentiment that has ever been expressed. Whatevs, updates to resume next Monday, December 31st.

No! Why would I want to talk about Literary Theory? Because you appreciate discussions about books and their place in society. Well, I do appreciate those things, yes. But Theory is more than a little pretentious, don't you think? Yeah, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about it. Fine. Where should we start? Well, maybe with a rough definition. That's easy, Literary Theory is when you take a discussion about Literature and turn it into a discussion of something else. Hmmm. C'mon, tell me I'm wrong. Well, I'd say it's more when you take a discussion of something else and turn it into a discussion about Literature. Hmmm. Are we being too joke-y? Maybe a little. Well, let's be more straightforward and define Theory as a series of analytical frameworks that you can apply to the discussion of literary texts. That's pretty sweeping. Well, you know. So, it's really just about new ways of looking at Literature. Exa...

Wait, math is about more than numbers? So, what's this book's deal? You may be unsurprised to learn that Math with Bad Drawings: Illuminating the Ideas that Shape Our Reality  is an educational book for grown-ups that tries to make mathematical concepts easily accessible to those of us who don't have a background in math. You took AP Calculus BC in high school. For a semester, but this is even more straightforward than that. Rather than trying to teach the reader how to perform complex calculations or solve equations, Orlin presents the reader with real world scenarios and explains the mathematics underpinning them. These practical demonstrations are divided up into five sections that broadly discuss: Mathematical Thinking, Geometry, Probability, Statistics, and Continuous/Discrete variables. Huh, so like a kind of practical guide to mathematical concepts? Yeah, it's not bogged down with a lot of equations (there are some in the endnotes) but instead stri...

I don't want FOP, GODDAMNIT! I'm a Dapper Dan man! Some people like to complain about the inevitable changes that occur when a story is adapted from one medium to another. But let's be honest, sometimes, the less faithful an adaptation is, the more memorable it is. So, in this series I'll be taking a look at adaptations where creators took one look at the source material and said, "FUCK THAT NOISE!" to see how that turned out. Today's Oddaptation: The Odyssey of Homer  (8th Century-ish BCE) by Homer, trans. Richmond Lattimore into O Brother, Where Art Thou? dir. Joel Cohen, written by Ethan and Joel Cohen Sing to me, muse, of those quirky writer-directors who transposed an ancient Greek epic they claim never to have read into one of the most quote-able movies ever made. The Original:  Something is rotten in the state of Ithaca. The king, Odysseus, never returned after the Trojan War (which itself took ten years) ended ten years ago. And now 100+...

Bloggers can do that, right? Right? New post on Thursday, I promise.

Ah, I see we're breaking out the inOpportune cOntent rePlacement proceSs .  You dun goofed! Again. I know, but maybe it was a self-sabotage and I just secretly wanted to talk about another of my hobbies. So, you play the ukulele? Yes. I'm sorry. Wow! That was rude. You're right. I'm actually sorry now. So do you do anything insufferable like pronounce it "oo-koo-lay-lay?" You mean . . . the way it's pronounced in the Hawaiian language? Yeah. No, I pronounce it "yooka-lay-lee." Anyway, the local Parks Department offers ukulele lessons for ages 12+ at the Senior Center for a pretty reasonable price and I thought it would be a fun thing to learn.  I mostly just play chords to accompany myself singing, and I like to think I've become reasonably okay at that. I'm not particularly good at picking out a melody, so I've got some room to grow there. Cool. What sort of instrument do you play? It's a Kala KA-ZCT-T T...

You're not planning to do anything cutesy like spend the whole time discussing something other than Allegory only to reveal that you were actually talking about Allegory the whole time are you? Probably not. Okay, because I don't like Allegories. That's fine, I'm not here to tell you what to like. I'm here to blog about books. And before you say that your dislike of Allegory means that it isn't enough to support an entire work of fiction, let's just agree that whether or not you like it authors have been using it for millennia and we can't just ignore it. Well, we could just ignore it, but I suspect you've got a "because-it's-there" mentality when it comes to discussing literary devices. That's the spirit, Hypothetical Reader. So, what do you know about Allegory? The word itself derives from Ancient Greek and literally means something like "to talk about something else." But I would say most people would think ...

Don't let Leslie Nielson fool you, this isn't a parody. Some people like to complain about the inevitable changes that occur when a story is adapted from one medium to another. But let's be honest, sometimes, the less faithful an adaptation is, the more memorable it is. So, in this series I'll be taking a look at adaptations where creators took one look at the source material and said, "FUCK THAT NOISE!" to see how that turned out. Today's Oddaptation: The Tempest (1610-ish) by William Shakespeare into Forbidden Planet  (1956) dir. Fred M. Wilcox, screenplay by Cyril Hume, story by Irving Block, and Allen Adler Shakespeare . . . IN SPAAAAAAAAACE!!!!!!!!!! The Original: Okay, let's do this! Alonso is the King of Naples, and 12 years ago he helped his best bud, Antonio, usurp Antonio's brother Prospero as the Duke of Milan. But we don't know that yet. All we know is that they're sailing back to Italy from Alonso's daugher...

I'm still trying to work out the exact mechanics of this collision. Fun cover though. Okay, time to put Hypothetical Reader back in its box for a moment. That's right, plain old essay format review time. Now, I know that pervious instances of this format were both books that I thought were quite good, but I'll be honest: while I enjoyed reading Stupid Love Comedy , it is, in fact, only okay. Let's talk about why. So, Stupid Love Comedy is a Shōjo manga by Syusyusyu Sakurai (disclaimer, I haven't read all that much in the Shōjo genre, so it's possible that people who are fans of that genre may enjoy this more than I did) concerning the relationship between Osamu Hasegawa, a manga editor, and Suzu Sakura, a mangaka. See, Hasegawa used to be an editor at San Cruz,  a Shōnen magazine, who has been reassigned to Shōjo magazine  Daisy  to work with one of their promising new talents. Well, her debut was promising. As it turns out, Sakura-sensei (in addito...

Well, it may be my least favorite of the three, but I do think Mockingjay has the best cover. My feverish pursuit of MOAR content brought forth this feature: Simplified Series. Here's the pitch: quick synopses (I'll try and keep them spoiler-free, but, you know, most of these are past the statute of limitations on spoilers) of the entries in a series followed by the reasons you should or shouldn't read it. This week: The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins Background Info: I mean, you've probably heard of the Hunger Games trilogy or at least the tetralogy of films based on it (they were fairly popular, Jennifer Lawrence played the lead and they even got famous and well-regarded actors like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland and others to play the grown-ups). But if you're completely unaware, the books take place at some unspecified future date when the North American continent is ruled by the repressive government o...

Hmm, my bias towards science fiction might be showing. Isn't there a more literary term you could use for this like "theme." Maybe, but that would limit our discourse, Hypothetical Reader. I'll pretend you didn't say that and we'll just move on. Cool! So, when you say Ideas can be a load-bearing element, are you referring to philosophical novels? You mean like Crime and Punishment , Notes From Underground , The Idiot , Demons , or The Brothers Karamazov ? Well, I mean, people besides Dostoevsky have written philosophical novels, but sure. Yeah, but I went on a big Dostoevsky kick after I read Crime and Punishment  as the summer reading for AP English. Also, the other example that most people would be familiar with is Ayn Rand, and I never had an Ayn Rand phase. Lucky you! I know, right? Anyway, you've probably guessed that we're going to start out by talking about Crime and Punishment ! So, you've read C&P , right? As f...

This book cover is doubly dishonest: 1) it implies that these works are Tolkien originals rather than translations, and B) it implies a totally awesome scene in which Sir Gawain and the Green Knight must join forces to fight a more powerful foe (no such scene exists). Some people like to complain about the inevitable changes that occur when a story is adapted from one medium to another. But let's be honest, sometimes, the less faithful an adaptation is, the more memorable it is. So, in this series I'll be taking a look at adaptations where creators took one look at the source material and said, "FUCK THAT NOISE!" to see how that turned out. Today's Oddaptation: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight  (13XX) by ‾\_(ツ)_/‾, trans. J.R.R. Tolkien into Adventure Time, "Seventeen" (season 10, episode 5) (2017) dir. Cole Sanchez, written and storyboarded by Seo Kim and Somvilay Xayaphone Oddapta-tions, c'mon grab yer friends! We'll blog 'bout ...