Saving Private Ryan

I have avoided this movie for a long time and now I know why.  I saw it yesterday (taped from HBO) and spent a sleepless night.  It was pretty graphic and terrible.  I think it is definitely an anti-war movie.

Toward the end Tom Hanks looked at Private Ryan and said something like "You deserve it."  Meaning he deserved the sacrifices the eight men made to save him.  At the end of Ryan's life, he is still worried about whether he deserved it or not.  What a terrible legacy to saddle a man with all his life.  Is there any way he could possibly deserve that sacrifice?  Is there any possible way we can deserve the sacrifices our servicemen make for us?  For that matter, do we ever deserve the love we receive?  Our parents' love?  Our siblings'?  Our spouse's?  Our children's?  Can we ever deserve God's love?  Of course not.  Of course not to all of it.  We just have it.  The best we can do is be grateful and try to be good to one another.  Give it up, Ryan.  You were given the sacrifice.  You could never deserve it.

Finished 3001 THE FINAL ODYSSEY

An ingenious ending to a great series.  I can't say much more without spoiling it for anyone who hasn't read it.  I'm not sure I loved the ending, but, perhaps it simply illustrates the old adage that "it is a truly ill wind that blows no one any good."  (Or something like that.)  I always say "There are pros and cons to everything."  Leave it to Arthur C. Clarke to find a "pro" to this particular thing.  'Nuff said.



I am now reading The Key  by Simon Toyne, the second book in a trilogy started with Sanctus.
It took forever for Goodreads to find this book.  I typed in The Key and it gave me The Secret Garden.  What?  I had it search for "The Key by Simon Toyne" and it told me it didn't exist.  Finally I had it list everything it had by Simon Toyne and then it found it.  It the meantime, it was impossible to delete The Secret Garden, so I put it on the "want to read" shelf even though I don't.

I am on page 53 of The Key.  The intrigue is already fierce and I already can't put it down.  I am not asking Dan Brown to move over, I'm just glad both of these authors are in my world.

The Desolation of Smaug

Our regular theater was undergoing retooling after having been sold yesterday, so we went to one we hadn't been to before in Denton--Cinemark.  Much older that what was the Rave and the seats were much less comfortable.  The movie was so good, I didn't hardly notice, but poor TR came out positively crippled and complained he would never go to the theatre with me again...that may change with time, of course.  Interesting that he never said a word until the movie was over.

I had not expected to like it.  The Hobbit is one of my very favorite books--I taught it to at least one class (my best readers) every year I taught (yes folks--34 years with me playing the parts of Gandalf, Gollum, and Smaug nearly every time)--and I'd seen enough of the previews to know that a great deal was being added to the original story line.

To me, the worst thing that a movie-maker can do to a book is to ignore the original author's theme--the truth about life that is illustrated throughout the book.  The truth is that The Hobbit does divide pretty naturally into three sections...and those Peter Jackson has been true to.  Each of those sections is about greed--the dwarves greed for the gold.  Smaug's greed for gold and riches.  Thorin's greed for the arkenstone (as well as gold), the elves' and lakemen's greed for the riches of the mountain.  To that Peter Jackson adds things that Tolkien did not make apparent until The Lord of the Rings--Bilbo's growing greed for the ring and Sauron's greed for power.  Doing this has added to Tolkien's theme and has shown great love and respect for the saga.  He has also given Legolas (who didn't even show up in Tolkien's The Hobbit) even more cause to hate dwarves.

Jackson has given the elves, dwarves, and orcs much more to do than they had in the original and has made the dwarves much more courageous than they originally were, but none of this disturbs the fundamentals of the book.  Can you tell that I loved the movie???  And it was in 3-D.  Really cool.

Mystery Solved

Clark gave the answer to my quandary in the last post.  Frank had broken loose from Discovery soon enough so that, instead of going into a high orbit around Jupiter, he kind of whiplashed off Jupiter and got catapulted out of the solar system.  Of course, he was still orbiting the sun and his catapult wasn't that fast, so it took 1000 years for him to reach the edge of the solar system where he was found.

That did not happen to the others who were jettisoned later.  By then, Jupiter's gravity was too great and they went into a deteriorating Jupiter orbit eventually to burn up entering Luficer's corona.

Finished PEOPLE OF THE SEA

Another wonderful story out of the distant past, this one set in what is now California about 15,000-10,000 years ago.  Mammoths, dire wolves, saber tooth tigers, lions, and other large animals are still around, but dying out as the glaciers melt, and again, the people are faced with trying to survive in the face of climate change.  Add in culture clash between matriarch cultures and patriarch cultures, which results in an intriguing story.  As usual with books by these two, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I have now started 3001, The Final Odyssey.  Talk about culture clash!  15,000 years ago, then flash to 1000 years in the future.  Frank Poole (from 2001) has been found on a trajectory that is finally taking him out of the solar system after 1000 years in orbit (evidently around the sun).  This makes no sense to me since, it seems to me, he would have been in orbit around Jupiter which would have taken him in to crash into Jupiter (now a sun) long ago.  But, if he had been in orbit around the Sun, wouldn't that orbit have deteriorated inward toward the sun, rather than outward beyond the solar system?  I know there is a force causing the universe to enlarge, but, if that is what caught Frank, isn't it probable that his outward motion have kept pace with the planets around him and that he would still be in relatively the same position that he started (relative to the planets around him)?  But, ok, discarding that and accepting the story as told (suspending disbelief), Frank had been frozen at the optimum temperature to preserve his body and technology now exists to revive him.  Now he has a severe culture shock of his own to deal with...

Finished CLOSE TO ME by Mary Jane Clark

Good fast exciting, can't put it down reading.  I liked the main character and most of the people around her.  Intelligent and fast paced.



Am now about to start the next W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear novel in their People of Prehistoric North America series, People of the Sea.  I've been looking forward to this one...

Finished GHOST STORY

This has read a bit differently than most of the other books in the Dresden series.  Though it is full of action as usual, Dresden's talents are greatly altered (since he is ghost) and we also learn more about his upbringing and his learning to become a wizard than we had known before.



I found myself hating that he was a ghost and loving hearing about his early adventures.  Again a large variety of wonderful characters populate this novel which I enjoyed coming to know.  So, I guess I hated the premise of the book while I loved reading it...

Now I have started Close to You by Mary Jane Clark.  These books read very much like Mary Higgins Clark's books, but there are reviews by the latter included in the front pages and back cover.  Someone told me she thinks they are one and the same person, but with different publishers???  Strange.  The main character of this is an anchor woman on a local news station and deals with fan stalker issues.  I'm already into it.