Book Review - The Orphan's Tales

The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden
By Catherynne M. Valente
Published October 2006

See synopsis and editorial opinions on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Absolutely wonderful! I love the prose: it has a poetic rhythm akin to oral storytelling tradition, descriptive but not flowery, clever but not inaccessible. The tone and diction exude a strong sense of enchantment, combined with a commonplace lilt. You don't question anything, the world just exists and all events are told matter-of-fact, despite their fantastic nature.

The structure of the book would be a gimmick, if it weren't so masterfully implemented. We begin in the garden of a middle eastern type palace, where an unruly prince meets a mysterious orphan. The orphan tells a story, in which a character of the story tells another story, in which another character tells another story, and so on, in an elegant nested loop that builds a beautiful mythology. The tales spiral around each other and well-placed interludes bring the narrative back to the garden, grounding the book so you don't get lost. As the concentric stories progress, you start discovering connections on this delightful journey where a wide range of our own cultural legends and archetypes, like the Firebird and Mother Goose, the evil wizard and brave prince, are manipulated into the author's unique creations.

Valente is spinning her own fairy tales and they are amazing ones. Her characters are varied in form and manner, yet their struggles and emotions have a core of humanity which makes the stories meaningful and engaging. My only problem is how it abruptly ends, offering very few resolutions. If I didn't know there was a second book, I would have thrown a tantrum about all the threads left dangling.

It's rare to find well executed writing in conjunction with such marvelous imagination. This book is a definite must-read for fantasy/folklore fans and I can't wait to pick up the sequel and devour more!

New Brunswick Surprises

Discovered two things in New Brunswick tonight:

* I really like Ethiopian food. Or at least, whatever Americanized version of Ethiopian food they serve at Makedas. Tasty sauces and awesome bread!

* A comic/game store just opened on Bayard & George! Pretty decent selection and they're rounding up an RPG group this Thursday night. Finally, gaming close by! Maybe someone will be running a 4E campaign this summer.

Every now and then, the locale pops out some nice treats!

Happy Loving Day!

Celebrating the Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court decision to overturn state bans on interracial marriage.

It's pretty unbelievable that 40 years ago, this was considered a legal opinion on the issue:

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

We've come a long way since!

More info here.

May Flowers

The past three days have been absolutely gorgeous, simply the best of spring that the northeast has to offer. Mid-60's to 70's, sunny, gentle breeze.....and I've been pulling 12 hour work days.

I'll be in the office all weekend too. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I just went outside and rolled around in the grass while our data explodes.

Cookery

This past weekend, my mom handed down the recipe for her beef stew. I've decided to post it here, because Google has the entire internet saved.

Like any home cook, she uses no measurements, just experience and feel. But you can easily season this one to taste.

Ingredients:
Beef Shank (Per my mom, it MUST, MUST, MUST be shank)
Soy Sauce
Garlic
Carrots
Vodka (Pure and straight, none of that flavored crap!)
Sugar
Green Onion
Black Pepper

Steps:
1. Cut beef into cubes and add to pot
2. Fill pot with 60/40 Soy Sauce/Water (more water if you want less salty). You want enough liquid to cover all the meat, plus around 2 inches over. Start heating.
3. For each pound of meat, add 2~3 cloves of crushed garlic
4. For each pound of meat, add the WHITE root portion of around 5~6 stalks of green onion, chopped
5. Add sugar to taste (usually a spoon for each pound of meat)
6. Add black pepper to taste
7. Add enough vodka to form a 1/4 inch layer over the existing liquid (obviously, it won't stay layered, but you know what I mean)
8. Bring to boil, then let simmer until meat is tender (around 30 minutes per pound, although it varies depending on your stove)
9. While simmering, cut carrots diagonal and add to stew. Carrots soften pretty quickly, so no need to add until later in the process

Optional: you can add potatoes, onions, or green peppers around the same time you add the beef, or cauliflower at the same time you add the carrots.

Touched

Few things move me to tears, but hearing He Xiaozhu read his poem on NPR did. He was at a teahouse in Chengdu when the quake hit.

Here is the Chinese:



And the English translation:

Thousands upon thousands of anguished cries
Returning to silence and tranquillity
Heavenly acts cannot be predicted
The moon over Wenchuan
Still, a question mark
Aftershocks extend to Chengdu
Sorrow engulfs half the world
Tears turn to ice
Let candlelight melt them away
Children, climb on a dandelion
and line up for heaven

NPR's coverage in China has been extraordinary. Yet of all the reports and interviews, this little snippet has been the one that really hits home. Sometimes it just takes an artist's touch.

Bringing Home Bacon

The JPMorgan offer letter arrived. I officially have a job in the Investment Banking division!

*** SO MUCH RELIEF ***

Everyone in our business unit was given a chance to stay, but throughout the firm lots of hard-working smart people got shafted. Sometimes it just has nothing to do with merit and everything to do with bad timing. At least JPM is providing career services to those who got laid off. I'm really going to miss some of them.

Oh, Wrath

Mother nature has been on quite the bender lately...what with the tornadoes and cyclone and earthquake.

Really makes me feel lucky to live someplace stable and insured.

This is not your grandma's swordplay!

This past sunday at TaiChi, I took a sword to the forehead:



Head wounds bleed like a motherfuck! The sleeve of my shirt is definitely permanently stained. Thankfully, there was no concussion. Just an ugly gash that had to be sewn up with six tiny stitches.

Given my hyperactive childhood, it's amazing these are my first stitches. It wasn't pleasant, but I've felt worse. The local anesthetic hurt the most and the thread going in and out felt odd, but Vic was there to distract me so I didn't dwell on the bizarre sensation. I was quite impressed by the doctor's sewing. The thread is tiny and he was very efficient.

The stitches should be coming out tomorrow, which I've heard can be more painful than getting them put in.

Should leave a pretty awesome scar - at least I can tell people it was from a sword!

Here's a really gross but fascinating (OK, maybe just to me) close-up of the fine work:

Kong vs. T-Rex

It finally arrived!