Like many, I have been following the mysterious Pottermore site with interest. Today, JK Rowling revealed that it will be a site that provides at least 18,000 words of backstory on assorted characters, like McGonagall and the Dursleys, as well as some games and, here's the controversial part, access to e-books.
No one can argue that JKR has not done way more than any individual's (nay, any nation's!) part to boost book sales. Still, like so many in the book business, I am worried about what electronic publishing will do to books and bookstores, especially small independent stores who have to find ways to hold their own against local competition like B&N and against online competitors like Amazon.
I have a Kindle, and I love it, but I admit that I read differently on the Kindle. I'm nearing the end of the fourth George R.R. Martin book. I bought the first one, and then got the second for my Kindle. My husband bought hard copy. I had a hard time reading the book electronically. I needed the maps. I needed to know how many pages were left in the chapter and who came next. Ultimately, I felt less invested in the characters and the narrative on my Kindle, so as soon as my husband finished, I picked up the hard copy with great relief.
I have enjoyed some books on my Kindle--mostly books that don't feel important, that are just fun or informational--and I certainly enjoy having the Kindle and having so many books on hand wherever I am.
And this is where I get back to Harry Potter. I am a die hard HP fan. I love the books. I re-read them. I have multiple copies of each book, some in foreign languages. I even read Book 1 in Spanish to practice when I was learning the language. I have read all 7 books with my older child and am up to book 4 with my younger kids. I teach the HP books to my college students, and once, sometimes twice per year, I make classes of 25-35 students buy select books in the series. In other words, I have done my share of buying these books from booksellers small and large in four countries.
Now, I can hardly wait to have all seven books on my Kindle. I will always have them with me. Always. When I'm waiting at the doctor's office, and I'd really like to re-read the scene when Harry first gets snarky with Umbridge, I can. When I'm on a plane, and I crave the Battle of Hogwarts, it will be right there with me. It will be like a literary security blanket.
And carrying around my HP blanket will keep the books present for me, not that I think anything could make them less present. It will remind me to teach them and to read them with my kids and to buy the real books for other children I know.
I don't think children yet read e-books. Maybe they will some day, but we're not there yet. Adults will continue to buy the hard copy HP books for children they know. Why? Because the books are important. Because you must have the experience of their heft in your hands or the words on the page.
Nothing sends a shiver down the spine like the last phrase of the first chapter of the first book, "The Boy Who Lived." Seeing those words on paper is an experience everyone should have for the first time, and the second, and the third. But once that magic has become a part of you, it's OK to read the words on an e-reader. Their magic simply cannot be lessened. And having those words with me always will be magical indeed.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
The Tactile Muse
I am poised at a fork in my writing road: I have plotted a sequel to A Sketch in Time, which will take place mostly during the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, and I have planned a massive revision of my first novel, This Powerful Rhyme. The revision will involve getting rid of one of the protagonists and will thus really be a complete rewriting on blank pages rather than a tinkering of pages already written. I feel drawn to both of these projects, and I expect I will tackle both in good time, but for now, I am standing at that fork, trying to decide which way to go.
This decision prompts me to think about what motivates me to write. What is my muse? The answer surprises me a little. As a professor of literature, I would think words would be my muse. Other people's lovely words that brew on the page into a solution that is more than words and more than pages. And it's true that other people's words inspire me and give me strength and direction in my life, but they do not, funnily enough, stir me to write.
What stirs me to write is the mundane feel of things in my hands. This is not a metaphor. I mean the actual feel of things in my hands, which somehow prompts me to tell stories about those things. In stories, I put these things in other people's hands, but the things are real, and there is something in the reality of them, the feel of them that leads me to write.
I've been messing around with sequel ideas since November when I finished my first draft of A Sketch in Time. I've been making notes, thinking through scenarios, problems with the plot, challenges for the characters, etc., but the story didn't click. The story finally clicked the other day when I opened an antique desk imported from Barcelona. I was taking out a picture that I'd stored inside. To open the desk, I had to use a heavy iron key that struggled into place and then made a satisfying clack as it turned and allowed me to open the door. The feel of the key in my hand, the feel of the lock shifting, the feel of the heavy door falling open in my hand. All of those feelings transported me, and, like the lock, I felt the story clack into place. The desk will be in the sequel. It will be important, but it will not be the most important thing to the story. Yet, it may be the most important thing to me, the touchstone, the muse. When the story sticks and won't come out, I can literally turn the key and trigger my tactile muse.
For This Powerful Rhyme, there is a cupboard in a bedroom. It's door used to be stuck shut, and that was the beginning of that story. Now the door opens, but I can shut the cupboard and feel it's small, odd knob between my fingers, and I think I'll remember how it felt when that door wouldn't open and how the story that came out of the fastness of that cupboard presented itself.
So, I've learned tha I write inspired by the tactile muse. But I still don't know which fork to take. Perhaps I should open both doors, the one with its iron key and the other with is small knob and see which door demands a story from me.
This decision prompts me to think about what motivates me to write. What is my muse? The answer surprises me a little. As a professor of literature, I would think words would be my muse. Other people's lovely words that brew on the page into a solution that is more than words and more than pages. And it's true that other people's words inspire me and give me strength and direction in my life, but they do not, funnily enough, stir me to write.
What stirs me to write is the mundane feel of things in my hands. This is not a metaphor. I mean the actual feel of things in my hands, which somehow prompts me to tell stories about those things. In stories, I put these things in other people's hands, but the things are real, and there is something in the reality of them, the feel of them that leads me to write.
I've been messing around with sequel ideas since November when I finished my first draft of A Sketch in Time. I've been making notes, thinking through scenarios, problems with the plot, challenges for the characters, etc., but the story didn't click. The story finally clicked the other day when I opened an antique desk imported from Barcelona. I was taking out a picture that I'd stored inside. To open the desk, I had to use a heavy iron key that struggled into place and then made a satisfying clack as it turned and allowed me to open the door. The feel of the key in my hand, the feel of the lock shifting, the feel of the heavy door falling open in my hand. All of those feelings transported me, and, like the lock, I felt the story clack into place. The desk will be in the sequel. It will be important, but it will not be the most important thing to the story. Yet, it may be the most important thing to me, the touchstone, the muse. When the story sticks and won't come out, I can literally turn the key and trigger my tactile muse.
For This Powerful Rhyme, there is a cupboard in a bedroom. It's door used to be stuck shut, and that was the beginning of that story. Now the door opens, but I can shut the cupboard and feel it's small, odd knob between my fingers, and I think I'll remember how it felt when that door wouldn't open and how the story that came out of the fastness of that cupboard presented itself.
So, I've learned tha I write inspired by the tactile muse. But I still don't know which fork to take. Perhaps I should open both doors, the one with its iron key and the other with is small knob and see which door demands a story from me.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Where Characters Come From
I have recently finished a draft of a second novel, tentatively titled "Saving Nuria," in which most of the main characters are based pretty closely on members of my family; however, some are completely invented. When I read the novel (chapter by chapter as I wrote it) to my children, they recognized themselves and events and places from our life, but there are two major characters who are not based on anyone.
I had always imagined that authors either borrowed from life or didn't, but my own experience now shows me that one author in one text can take both approaches. The character Elizabeth, for instance, is loosely based on me--she's the mother in the story. The things that she experiences are (for the most part) not things I have experienced, but her general character is mine. In contrast, Nuria is someone I made up. She's not based, as far as I'm aware, on anyone at all. I invented her. Yet, I feel just as strong a sense of who she is, what she looks like, what she would do in different situations, as I feel about the other characters who have at least distant roots in real people.
As an example, I was in a shop the other day, and a young woman came in. I was sure I knew her or had seen her before, but I couldn't place her. Finally, I realized she looked like Nuria, but Nuria is fictional! Still, she is real enough in my head that I was able to recognize someone like her in the real world.
So, where do characters come from? The protagonist children in the novel--Micah, Jamie and Celia--are versions of my own children. They are fictionalized, certainly, but I can clearly trace their origins. Nuria is a different matter. Is she based on someone I know but I haven't myself made the connection? This is possible, but I don't think so. Is she based on a fictional character? Not that I'm aware of.
To be honest, when it came time for Nuria to enter the story, I had to stop writing for a few days because I wasn't sure how to craft her. I had a sense of her, but it was vague, abstract. Finally, I envisioned a pretty face with a crinkle of worry between bright eyes, and then Nuria came to life for me. I knew Nuria before I used the crinkle to develop her character, but I don't think I could have put her on the page without the vision of the crinkle.
I don't think I've answered my question. I guess I still don't know where Nuria came from, but I do know that characters are strange creatures that come from life and from imagination and grow into people who seem truly, deeply real. I don't flatter myself that my characters are as vibrant as some of the great characters we all know and love, but they are real, at least to me.
I had always imagined that authors either borrowed from life or didn't, but my own experience now shows me that one author in one text can take both approaches. The character Elizabeth, for instance, is loosely based on me--she's the mother in the story. The things that she experiences are (for the most part) not things I have experienced, but her general character is mine. In contrast, Nuria is someone I made up. She's not based, as far as I'm aware, on anyone at all. I invented her. Yet, I feel just as strong a sense of who she is, what she looks like, what she would do in different situations, as I feel about the other characters who have at least distant roots in real people.
As an example, I was in a shop the other day, and a young woman came in. I was sure I knew her or had seen her before, but I couldn't place her. Finally, I realized she looked like Nuria, but Nuria is fictional! Still, she is real enough in my head that I was able to recognize someone like her in the real world.
So, where do characters come from? The protagonist children in the novel--Micah, Jamie and Celia--are versions of my own children. They are fictionalized, certainly, but I can clearly trace their origins. Nuria is a different matter. Is she based on someone I know but I haven't myself made the connection? This is possible, but I don't think so. Is she based on a fictional character? Not that I'm aware of.
To be honest, when it came time for Nuria to enter the story, I had to stop writing for a few days because I wasn't sure how to craft her. I had a sense of her, but it was vague, abstract. Finally, I envisioned a pretty face with a crinkle of worry between bright eyes, and then Nuria came to life for me. I knew Nuria before I used the crinkle to develop her character, but I don't think I could have put her on the page without the vision of the crinkle.
I don't think I've answered my question. I guess I still don't know where Nuria came from, but I do know that characters are strange creatures that come from life and from imagination and grow into people who seem truly, deeply real. I don't flatter myself that my characters are as vibrant as some of the great characters we all know and love, but they are real, at least to me.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Save the Humanities -- I
Stanley Fish, writing in The New York Times, exhorts college presidents to fight for the humanities. He is prompted by the recent cutting of programs in the humanities at SUNY Albany (programs like French, for goodness sake), and he points out what all of us who work in the Humanities already know: that this tragic assault on knowledge in NY is not new.
Since I began teaching English literature in the mid-90s, I have had to explain to students why they should major in English, and/or what arguments they can use to persuade their parents that majoring in English is not a waste of time, money and intellect. Frankly, despite the alarming frequency of this conversation, I am always somewhat flummoxed by the question: Why WOULDN'T a person study the humanities?
I don't have a magic answer, certainly not one that can save what has been lost at SUNY Albany and other universities like it, but I will fumble through an answer here and try to fumble toward a better one in time.
So, why should a person study the humanities? Because we live in a world with other people, and to do our jobs and to have relationships and to live in this world, we must be able to communicate with these other people. Communicating does not mean forming nice sentences with subjects and verbs, though this is important and is a skill those who study the humanities generally perform quite easily; communicating means having a common vocabulary with which we observe, understand, and discuss what happens in our lives and in the world. That common vocabulary includes words well put together, but it also includes images, metaphors, allusions, what is known, in short, as cultural literacy. A person who studies the humanities is culturally literate.
I want to stress, however, that I am not talking about the version of cultural literacy best demonstrated at cocktail parties where a person might drop a line from a classic work of literature and thus appear erudite. No, we can all say "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times" in a knowing way. What matters is knowing where the sentence comes from, what it's original context was and what it's relevance is to a particular moment. To go farther, it's knowing how Dickens's representation of the French Revolution, almost a hundred years after it happened, has a certain nostalgia to it, and when quoting the opening phrase of A Tale of Two Cities, meaning to evoke that nostalgia along with complex meanings of "best" and "worst." And when a person evokes all that meaning, she communicates more profoundly about her own moment, whether a private, personal moment or a public, national moment.
And, of course, I'm just using here the example of quoting a sentence. A person who studies the humanities can do so much more, can communicate with such richness, can understand depths of personal and cultural experience, and can articulate with such nuance and clarity what she understands that whether she's a banker or a baker, her life will be richer and her job better done.
Stay tuned for how the humanities don't offer only a common vocabulary, but how they also give us the tools to value difference.
Since I began teaching English literature in the mid-90s, I have had to explain to students why they should major in English, and/or what arguments they can use to persuade their parents that majoring in English is not a waste of time, money and intellect. Frankly, despite the alarming frequency of this conversation, I am always somewhat flummoxed by the question: Why WOULDN'T a person study the humanities?
I don't have a magic answer, certainly not one that can save what has been lost at SUNY Albany and other universities like it, but I will fumble through an answer here and try to fumble toward a better one in time.
So, why should a person study the humanities? Because we live in a world with other people, and to do our jobs and to have relationships and to live in this world, we must be able to communicate with these other people. Communicating does not mean forming nice sentences with subjects and verbs, though this is important and is a skill those who study the humanities generally perform quite easily; communicating means having a common vocabulary with which we observe, understand, and discuss what happens in our lives and in the world. That common vocabulary includes words well put together, but it also includes images, metaphors, allusions, what is known, in short, as cultural literacy. A person who studies the humanities is culturally literate.
I want to stress, however, that I am not talking about the version of cultural literacy best demonstrated at cocktail parties where a person might drop a line from a classic work of literature and thus appear erudite. No, we can all say "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times" in a knowing way. What matters is knowing where the sentence comes from, what it's original context was and what it's relevance is to a particular moment. To go farther, it's knowing how Dickens's representation of the French Revolution, almost a hundred years after it happened, has a certain nostalgia to it, and when quoting the opening phrase of A Tale of Two Cities, meaning to evoke that nostalgia along with complex meanings of "best" and "worst." And when a person evokes all that meaning, she communicates more profoundly about her own moment, whether a private, personal moment or a public, national moment.
And, of course, I'm just using here the example of quoting a sentence. A person who studies the humanities can do so much more, can communicate with such richness, can understand depths of personal and cultural experience, and can articulate with such nuance and clarity what she understands that whether she's a banker or a baker, her life will be richer and her job better done.
Stay tuned for how the humanities don't offer only a common vocabulary, but how they also give us the tools to value difference.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
The Jane Austen Workout
I haven't posted to this blog in a long time. I've spent the summer traveling and am now settled in Barcelona for my sabbatical. I spend my days working on some scholarly articles and thinking about my second novel. It's a good life!
Along with reading and writing (and the occasional delectable meal out--who can live in Barcelona and not make eating a high priority?), I am also getting into a regular gym routine. And I think I have finally stumbled into a workout that may actually work for me. I'm calling it the Jane Austen Workout.
While most people are motivated by Lady Gaga or Cyndi Lauper while they bounce to the beat on the stair stepper, I have always gotten bored with my techno playlists after one or two workouts. I don't like to watch TV at the gym, especially when the only channel is BarcaTV, a channel entirely devoted to the Barcelona futbol team (I'm a fan, but really?), and I can't read without my glasses, don't like to wear my glasses while I exercise, blah blah blah. So all this aural and visual finickiness leaves me bored and uninspired at the gym.
I've also tried listening to assorted podcasts, and this has been somewhat more successful. However, I need to be listening to something that really holds my attention or else my mind wanders and then I'm wondering why Melvyn Brag is chortling about Boadicea (In Our Time) or which Middle Eastern pottery shard (History of the World in 100 Objects) we're learning about now.
So, what really holds my attention? A good book! If it's a book I haven't read before, then I don't have the patience for an audiobook because I want to tear through it quickly. If it's a book I know really well, then I have the mind wandering problem again. Taking all of this into consideration, I settled on the Jane Austen novels that I don't know very well.
Of course, English PhD that I am, I have read all of Austen's novels, but Pride and Prejudice and Emma are the ones I teach and thus read over and over again. I haven't read the others more than once and not for a long time. I know what happens, so I don't need to hurry through the books like I do with first reads, but I don't remember the details, so I enjoy savoring them in the slow format of the audiobook. Plus, these books are in the public domain, so I have found free audio versions through Booksshouldbefree.com. I'm listening to Persuasion first and finding myself, for the first time in a long time, quite happy to go to the gym.
I could go on about an aging heroine and an aging exerciser, but that would be unflattering to both Anne Elliot and myself, so I'll just say that I'm thrilled and surprised to have discovered that after all these years of resisting exercise, it was Jane Austen who would help me get in shape!
Along with reading and writing (and the occasional delectable meal out--who can live in Barcelona and not make eating a high priority?), I am also getting into a regular gym routine. And I think I have finally stumbled into a workout that may actually work for me. I'm calling it the Jane Austen Workout.
While most people are motivated by Lady Gaga or Cyndi Lauper while they bounce to the beat on the stair stepper, I have always gotten bored with my techno playlists after one or two workouts. I don't like to watch TV at the gym, especially when the only channel is BarcaTV, a channel entirely devoted to the Barcelona futbol team (I'm a fan, but really?), and I can't read without my glasses, don't like to wear my glasses while I exercise, blah blah blah. So all this aural and visual finickiness leaves me bored and uninspired at the gym.
I've also tried listening to assorted podcasts, and this has been somewhat more successful. However, I need to be listening to something that really holds my attention or else my mind wanders and then I'm wondering why Melvyn Brag is chortling about Boadicea (In Our Time) or which Middle Eastern pottery shard (History of the World in 100 Objects) we're learning about now.
So, what really holds my attention? A good book! If it's a book I haven't read before, then I don't have the patience for an audiobook because I want to tear through it quickly. If it's a book I know really well, then I have the mind wandering problem again. Taking all of this into consideration, I settled on the Jane Austen novels that I don't know very well.
Of course, English PhD that I am, I have read all of Austen's novels, but Pride and Prejudice and Emma are the ones I teach and thus read over and over again. I haven't read the others more than once and not for a long time. I know what happens, so I don't need to hurry through the books like I do with first reads, but I don't remember the details, so I enjoy savoring them in the slow format of the audiobook. Plus, these books are in the public domain, so I have found free audio versions through Booksshouldbefree.com. I'm listening to Persuasion first and finding myself, for the first time in a long time, quite happy to go to the gym.
I could go on about an aging heroine and an aging exerciser, but that would be unflattering to both Anne Elliot and myself, so I'll just say that I'm thrilled and surprised to have discovered that after all these years of resisting exercise, it was Jane Austen who would help me get in shape!
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Reader, I Married Him
Many of my readers will recognize the title of this post as a key line from Jane Eyre, a novel famously written in the first person. I am at the very beginning of a second novel, which, unlike my first novel, is written in the first person. I am struck by how much easier it is to convey voice and character with first person but how much harder tense is.
Tense may seem like syntax 101, but in narrative, tense locates the voice in time vis-a-vis the action of the novel. Jane narrates in the first person from a time several years after the events of the novel, so she has knowledge that she chooses to keep from the reader and to dole out as she (or really as Charlotte Bronte) sees fit. The narrating Jane knew all along that she married "him," but she keeps the reader in suspense. The past tense in the sentence that titles this post reminds the reader that the narrator knew this key event would occur.
In my novel, the character is caught up in a mystery that he doesn't yet understand, so while I am firmly committed to the first person for this narrative, I have to make a really important decision about tense.
Does my protagonist narrate in the present tense? "I walk in the room, and I see a dragon." With a present tense first person the reader and the narrator are pretty much equals in terms of access to information about the events of the story. This has merits, but you lose the ability to allow the narrator to frame the events. I can pretty readily rule out present tense.
The real choice is between a past tense that puts the narrator in medias res and a past tense that puts the narrator at a time after the events of the story (like Jane). To put the narrator in medias res might mean that my character is narrating from a point midway through the story: the narrative would be in the past tense to a point and then shift into present tense. This can be exciting, but I'm not exactly writing an adventure story.
I do want some reflective framing on the part of the narrator, so I think it does make the most sense to follow Bronte and have my narrator temporally based after the events of the story. Thus, he can write about himself and what happened to him in the past tense while using the narrative to guide the reader's understanding and feeling about the story. For example, "I didn't expect to see anything out of the ordinary when I walked in the room, but the dragon was evidently expecting me." This is a much more interesting sentence than the present tense version above.
Yet, some readers are annoyed by Jane's vantage point outside the action and, in a way, above the reader. They find her manipulative, but maybe she is, and maybe that's part of her character's complexity and Bronte's genius. I don't want my readers to find my character manipulative, but I'd like them to find him smart and self-aware, characteristics I may be able to convey with the narrative voice.
When I commit to a past tense first person narrative in which the narrator is beyond the events in the novel, I have to think about why the narrator wants to tell the story, what he thinks about it after the fact, what he learned along the way, and what all that distance means for the tone he will take, the words he will choose, and the ways in which he will place emphasis. The narrative voice, thus, not only tells the story, but tells the reader what impact the story had on the main character. And it must tell this meta-story without spoiling the plot, so when whatever my "Reader, I married him" sentence comes along, my reader is at once pleasantly surprised and really knew it all along.
Tense may seem like syntax 101, but in narrative, tense locates the voice in time vis-a-vis the action of the novel. Jane narrates in the first person from a time several years after the events of the novel, so she has knowledge that she chooses to keep from the reader and to dole out as she (or really as Charlotte Bronte) sees fit. The narrating Jane knew all along that she married "him," but she keeps the reader in suspense. The past tense in the sentence that titles this post reminds the reader that the narrator knew this key event would occur.
In my novel, the character is caught up in a mystery that he doesn't yet understand, so while I am firmly committed to the first person for this narrative, I have to make a really important decision about tense.
Does my protagonist narrate in the present tense? "I walk in the room, and I see a dragon." With a present tense first person the reader and the narrator are pretty much equals in terms of access to information about the events of the story. This has merits, but you lose the ability to allow the narrator to frame the events. I can pretty readily rule out present tense.
The real choice is between a past tense that puts the narrator in medias res and a past tense that puts the narrator at a time after the events of the story (like Jane). To put the narrator in medias res might mean that my character is narrating from a point midway through the story: the narrative would be in the past tense to a point and then shift into present tense. This can be exciting, but I'm not exactly writing an adventure story.
I do want some reflective framing on the part of the narrator, so I think it does make the most sense to follow Bronte and have my narrator temporally based after the events of the story. Thus, he can write about himself and what happened to him in the past tense while using the narrative to guide the reader's understanding and feeling about the story. For example, "I didn't expect to see anything out of the ordinary when I walked in the room, but the dragon was evidently expecting me." This is a much more interesting sentence than the present tense version above.
Yet, some readers are annoyed by Jane's vantage point outside the action and, in a way, above the reader. They find her manipulative, but maybe she is, and maybe that's part of her character's complexity and Bronte's genius. I don't want my readers to find my character manipulative, but I'd like them to find him smart and self-aware, characteristics I may be able to convey with the narrative voice.
When I commit to a past tense first person narrative in which the narrator is beyond the events in the novel, I have to think about why the narrator wants to tell the story, what he thinks about it after the fact, what he learned along the way, and what all that distance means for the tone he will take, the words he will choose, and the ways in which he will place emphasis. The narrative voice, thus, not only tells the story, but tells the reader what impact the story had on the main character. And it must tell this meta-story without spoiling the plot, so when whatever my "Reader, I married him" sentence comes along, my reader is at once pleasantly surprised and really knew it all along.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Lost: The End
Apologies to the readers of this blog who don't watch "Lost," and SPOILER ALERT to those who do but haven't yet watched the series finale. These are my thoughts on the final episode of the show I watched loyally from the very beginning.
I liked a lot about the finale. For one thing, I thought it was exceptionally well written. The echoes of conversations past were moving and well done. In particular, I found Kate's redelivery of Aaron to be lovely. I also quite liked that Jack passed the island torch to Hurley (which I anticipated BTW), though I would have really enjoyed even just one scene showing Hurley stepping into that role. Maybe we get that a little bit when he asks Ben to be his second in command. I also really liked that moment: all Ben has wanted is to be wanted, and he's been such a rich and complex character all along, I was happy to see him get what he wants. I also thought there was a sweetness to him happily accepting second-in-command. I thought all the scenes of remembering were good, and it's not easy to dramatize remembering. These scenes served the dual purpose of reminding the characters of their other life (nice echoes of "I'll see you in another life, Brother."), and allowing the viewers to savor key moments past.
I did not like the end. Let me say first how I interpret the end (and I will concede that I DO like that they left us with things to interpret). I do not think they all died in the plane crash. I base my assertion on (a) the fact that if they all died in the original crash, then the whole show is a cipher, and I can't accept that and don't think the creators would want to leave us with that, and (b) Christian Shepard's comment that some of these people died before Jack and some long after. I think it's pretty clear that Christian is meant to be the voice of authority at the end, and so I think we can believe what he says. Thus, I conclude that some characters died in ways we know about (like Boone, Shannon, Libby, Locke, etc.) and others died later in life. Kate and Sawyer, for instance, got off the island and lived lives of one kind or another until they died later on of causes unrelated to the island (presumably). Jack died on the island, killed by Smokey, having "fixed" everything one last time, his eye closing on his life and on the series. A really lovely (if expected) final image.
OK, so I don't think they all died in the crash. I believe Christian. The primary reason I found the end of the series so unsatisfying is because the show ultimately failed to reconcile science and faith. All along this reason/faith conundrum has been a major theme, running most notably through the character arcs of Jack and Locke. And the show has, in my opinion, consistently done reason (read: science) better than faith, which is by definition slippery. Case in point: one of the best episodes of the series was "The Constant," in which we get insight into Daniel's theoretical physics and learn that Desmond is a constant when it comes to a form of time travel. In the finale, Desmond's constancy became much more amorphous and angel-like, rather than plausibly interwoven into something like real physics. The fact that Daniel really had no role to play in the denouement (other than the piano!) and didn't get to go to church with the rest of the lostaways signifies how the creators had moved away from the scientific themes.
Did Oceanic 815 crash because Jacob brought broken people to the island to replace him, or did it crash because Desmond failed to push the button and thus released an enormous amount of energy? I would have really liked the final answer to be both, but the creators ultimately shoved Desmond's action under the carpet and left us with Jacob. Similarly, and worse, was the sideways world an alternate reality created by the strategic detonation of a hydrogen bomb, or a purgatory that doesn't really exist in any sort of reality? Again, why couldn't it have been both? I'm fine with them leaving Sideways behind (with the massive exception of Jack who has a son and a much better life in Sideways than he ever had in reality), but did the show need to so completely obliterate the reality of sideways?
Finally, I find it sad that so many characters didn't go on to have better or more meaningful lives than they had on the island. (Sayid is the saddest of all: OK, he never gets Nadia, but he never gets to do better than Shannon, either?). Again, if we believe Christian, all these folks who lived lives of varying lengths (Hurley, for instance, may have lived a couple thousand years a la Jacob) never experienced anything more important than the time they were on the island? I appreciate that the show's creators wanted to leave the viewers with a sort of happy ending, but we've been so invested in these people getting better lives for themselves that to learn they never, ever did is a horrible blow.
I would much rather have been left with a flash forward montage of Kate and Claire cheering on Aaron at a soccer game; of Rose and Bernard placing flowers on Jack's grave, while Hurley benignly commands a group of latter day Others who are much more functional than their predecessors; and of Sawyer shedding his assumed name and the many ghosts of his past.
"Lost" was a great show, game changing in many ways, and the last ten minutes of the finale don't undo six years of amazing television, but I wish they could have lived up to their own potential in THE END.
I liked a lot about the finale. For one thing, I thought it was exceptionally well written. The echoes of conversations past were moving and well done. In particular, I found Kate's redelivery of Aaron to be lovely. I also quite liked that Jack passed the island torch to Hurley (which I anticipated BTW), though I would have really enjoyed even just one scene showing Hurley stepping into that role. Maybe we get that a little bit when he asks Ben to be his second in command. I also really liked that moment: all Ben has wanted is to be wanted, and he's been such a rich and complex character all along, I was happy to see him get what he wants. I also thought there was a sweetness to him happily accepting second-in-command. I thought all the scenes of remembering were good, and it's not easy to dramatize remembering. These scenes served the dual purpose of reminding the characters of their other life (nice echoes of "I'll see you in another life, Brother."), and allowing the viewers to savor key moments past.
I did not like the end. Let me say first how I interpret the end (and I will concede that I DO like that they left us with things to interpret). I do not think they all died in the plane crash. I base my assertion on (a) the fact that if they all died in the original crash, then the whole show is a cipher, and I can't accept that and don't think the creators would want to leave us with that, and (b) Christian Shepard's comment that some of these people died before Jack and some long after. I think it's pretty clear that Christian is meant to be the voice of authority at the end, and so I think we can believe what he says. Thus, I conclude that some characters died in ways we know about (like Boone, Shannon, Libby, Locke, etc.) and others died later in life. Kate and Sawyer, for instance, got off the island and lived lives of one kind or another until they died later on of causes unrelated to the island (presumably). Jack died on the island, killed by Smokey, having "fixed" everything one last time, his eye closing on his life and on the series. A really lovely (if expected) final image.
OK, so I don't think they all died in the crash. I believe Christian. The primary reason I found the end of the series so unsatisfying is because the show ultimately failed to reconcile science and faith. All along this reason/faith conundrum has been a major theme, running most notably through the character arcs of Jack and Locke. And the show has, in my opinion, consistently done reason (read: science) better than faith, which is by definition slippery. Case in point: one of the best episodes of the series was "The Constant," in which we get insight into Daniel's theoretical physics and learn that Desmond is a constant when it comes to a form of time travel. In the finale, Desmond's constancy became much more amorphous and angel-like, rather than plausibly interwoven into something like real physics. The fact that Daniel really had no role to play in the denouement (other than the piano!) and didn't get to go to church with the rest of the lostaways signifies how the creators had moved away from the scientific themes.
Did Oceanic 815 crash because Jacob brought broken people to the island to replace him, or did it crash because Desmond failed to push the button and thus released an enormous amount of energy? I would have really liked the final answer to be both, but the creators ultimately shoved Desmond's action under the carpet and left us with Jacob. Similarly, and worse, was the sideways world an alternate reality created by the strategic detonation of a hydrogen bomb, or a purgatory that doesn't really exist in any sort of reality? Again, why couldn't it have been both? I'm fine with them leaving Sideways behind (with the massive exception of Jack who has a son and a much better life in Sideways than he ever had in reality), but did the show need to so completely obliterate the reality of sideways?
Finally, I find it sad that so many characters didn't go on to have better or more meaningful lives than they had on the island. (Sayid is the saddest of all: OK, he never gets Nadia, but he never gets to do better than Shannon, either?). Again, if we believe Christian, all these folks who lived lives of varying lengths (Hurley, for instance, may have lived a couple thousand years a la Jacob) never experienced anything more important than the time they were on the island? I appreciate that the show's creators wanted to leave the viewers with a sort of happy ending, but we've been so invested in these people getting better lives for themselves that to learn they never, ever did is a horrible blow.
I would much rather have been left with a flash forward montage of Kate and Claire cheering on Aaron at a soccer game; of Rose and Bernard placing flowers on Jack's grave, while Hurley benignly commands a group of latter day Others who are much more functional than their predecessors; and of Sawyer shedding his assumed name and the many ghosts of his past.
"Lost" was a great show, game changing in many ways, and the last ten minutes of the finale don't undo six years of amazing television, but I wish they could have lived up to their own potential in THE END.
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