Maskerade - Terry Pratchett

Maskerade (Pratchett, 1995)

Agnes Nitt leaves her small town to try and make it as a singer in the capital city of Ankh-Morpork. Goaded by Perdita X (her alter ego, or, as she figures it, the thin person inside her), she gets a part in the chorus of the city opera. The flighty world of opera rubs her common-sense self the wrong way, with all this talk of luck, superstitions, and the ghost of the opera house who wears a bone-white mask. When the ghost starts killing people, though, she has to put her doubt aside and try to solve a very real mystery.

Terry Pratchett combines Monty-Pythonesque humour, fantasy, Dickensian plots, and a wit all his own into an irresistible combination. There are a lot of great characters: Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, two do-gooder witches trying to get Agnes to join their rational coven; Mr. Bucket, the cheese merchant who bought the opera house as an easy retirement; Christine, the ditzy soprano who never speaks with less than two exclamation marks; and of course Death, who shows up at the most inconvenient of times.

Plot-wise, this is a pretty straightforward adaption of Gustav Leroux's Phantom of the Opera, combined with the shift toward popular musicals of the 60s and 70s. With the source material worn right on the sleeve, there isn't much subtlety, but the characters and the comedy keep things interesting throughout.

The comedy is pretty delightful. In this scene, the witches are attempting to purchase Box Eight, which is always reserved for the ghost. Nanny recently came into some money, and Granny is rapidly spending it:

      "It's only money."
      "Yes, but it's only my money, not only your money," Nanny pointed out.
      "We witches have always held everything in common, you know that," said Granny.
      "Well, yes," said Nanny, and once again cut to the heart of the sociopolitical debate. "It's easy to hold everything in common when no one's got anything."
      "Why, Gytha Ogg," said Granny, "I thought you despised riches!"
      "Right, so I'd like to get the chance to despise them up close."

Or we have the inner monologue of the director of the opera, in moral turmoil because he has been ordered to have Agnes sing Christine's solo while Christine mouths the words center-stage:

      What did it matter what shape [Agnes] was? Dame Tessitura had a beard you could strike a match on and a nose flattened half across her face, but she was still one of the best basses who ever opened beer bottles with her thumb.

There are many hilarious assessments of opera in general, perhaps one of the best being Nanny's interpretation:

      "Well, basically there are two sorts of opera," said Nanny, who also had the true witch's ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience whatsoever. "There's your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign and it goes like 'Oh oh oh, I am dyin', oh, I am dyin', oh, oh, oh, that's what I'm doin'', and there's your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it basically goes 'Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!', although sometimes they drink champagne instead. That's basically all of opera, reely."

You can flip to almost any page in this book and find something funny (or at least amusing). That alone recommends it, even if the story in this one is a little weaker than other Pratchett books I've read.

Arbitrary rating: 4 out of 5 hearts of the sociopolitical debate

Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay (Collins, 2010)

In the final book of the Hunger Games trilogy, civil war rages. Katniss has been rescued by the people of District 13, a region thought to have been annihilated decades ago. Their severely utilitarian society wants to use Katniss's popularity to unite the districts in what may prove to be an impossible task - overthrowing the tyranny of the technologically and militarily superior Capitol.  But can she trust these new friends, or do they want to use her in their own games, just as the Capitol did?

Mockingjay is a powerful examination of the horrors of war and the darkest reaches of the human spirit. More bleak and bittersweet than the other two books combined, it is still compelling right to the last page. Inescapable consequences and irreversible decisions leave their scars on the characters in powerful ways. Moments of humor and lightness pepper the pages, but the heaviness of the subject matter definitely makes this a weighty book.

Unfortunately, I could see a lot of the action scenes in this book being made into gory, shallow CG in the eventual movie we all know is coming. It's unfortunate, because the action is very well written, and its visceral reality adds power and depth to the events. This actually may be one of the best (and least preachy) anti-war statements I've ever read, couched in terms of an enthralling but haunting human story.

Arbitrary rating: 4.5 out of 5 severely utilitarian societies

Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire (Collins, 2009)

It's a beautiful thing when a sequel is as good as the first book. In Catching Fire, Collins continues the story of Katniss. Though she survived the Hunger Games, her defiant and humane actions in the arena have sparked unrest against the Capitol's rule among the districts. Under threat from the Capitol, Katniss must try to stop what she unwittingly started.

The twists in this book have to be read to be believed.  There were several times where I physically felt the book hit me in the face, I was so surprised. (Though in retrospect, I should have seen some of them coming...)  My only worry was that it would turn into Twilight, since two different guys are in love with Katniss.  Thankfully, these books are the anti-Twilight. Katniss has bigger fish to fry, like keeping her family and herself alive. It rings far more true that a teenage girl with these kind of problems in her life would see a love triangle (and romance in general) as an unwelcome pitfall, rather than an all-consuming drama of ultimate importance.

A lot of great characters are introduced in this book, and Collins really impresses with the ease and precision she uses to make them memorable in a short amount of time. Because the action barely lets up long enough for us to meet these people before their lives are in danger.

Arbitrary rating: 4.5 out of 5 unwelcome pitfalls

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games (Collins, 2008)

What a barn-burner of a novel.  Set in a dystopic future North America, The Hunger Games is written at lightning fast pace. The suspense rarely lets up (but does so in all the right places), the characters draw us into their world, and the consequences of brutality, survival, and deception are examined in this science-fiction reality show.

Katniss Everdeen is a fifteen-year-old girl who lives in one of twelve districts enslaved to the Capitol. A previous revolt failed, and ever since, the Capitol has required a boy and a girl from each district to compete in the yearly Hunger Games, a televised bloodbath where the contestants must survive deadly traps, mutant predators, and each other. The last child left alive wins. When the name of Katniss's young sister Prim is drawn, she volunteers in her place, knowing she will likely die but hoping to survive and rejoin her family as the victor.

Collins weaves an unforgettable story with simple yet effective prose, modernizing the Greek myth of the Labyrinth and taking it in a new direction. The similarities of the Hunger Games to current reality TV are well played, perhaps prescient. Violence as entertainment also makes us ask important questions about video games and action movies.  However, the story transcends mere commentary. We see the hostile, deadly arena through the eyes of a teenage girl who is headstrong, determined, and desperate to survive, yet heartbroken at the choices she has to make - to kill to defend herself, to befriend someone who must eventually become a mortal enemy, to try to save a life in a situation designed for the opposite strategy.

Arbitrary rating: 4.5 out of 5 heartbreaking choices

Manalive - G. K. Chesterton

Manalive (Chesterton, 1912)

Chesterton delivers yet another book with nuggets of wit and wisdom spread throughout a funny, quick story.  The book follows the adventures of a man named Innocent Smith, whose unorthodox actions enliven the people he meets as he clings to creed while rejecting custom.

The story has all the speed and exaggeration of allegory, with the commonplace details left out in favor of significant events and conversations. Smith descends on a boarding house and stirs up a bunch of modern, disaffected young people with his whimsical acts - climbing trees, having tea on the roof, proposing marriage after a day, declaring independence from Britain for the house. The tenants realize they've been ignoring how much they need others, specifically each other, to enjoy life, and they are all about to get married when an American detective (possibly one of Chesterton's funniest characters) shows up with charges against Smith of attempted murder, robbery, family desertion, and bigamy.  However, they convince the detective to try Smith at the boarding house (which, after all, is its own sovereign state now), and together they try the facts of Smith's past misdeeds.

Chesterton excels in the small things, for instance, describing his characters:

"...[Dr. Warner] undoubtedly had brains; and perhaps it was not his fault if they were the kind of brains that most men desire to analyze with a poker."

"Inglewood had a politeness instinctive and yet awkward. His life was full of arrested half gestures of assistance."

"[Diana] was no other than the strenuous neice whose strength alone upheld that mansion of decay.... It would be wrong to say that she commanded; for her own efficiency was so impatient that she obeyed herself before any one else obeyed her."

"[Mary] had the knack of saying everything with her face: her silence was a sort of steady applause."

For all the people he meets, Smith wakes them up to the enjoyment to be had in life. Indeed, in all his adventures, he seems to have a need to prove he is alive. Though unlike existential or nihilistic antiheros with the same goal (I'm looking at you, Fight Club), Smith proves his existence through celebrating the normal, even if it is in a very bizarre way.  As he puts it, a revolution is merely a circle, and the goal of all revolution is to get home.  And rather than trying desperately to be a unique individual, Smith celebrates his normality in his telegram reply to Inglewood, who had been inquiring after his health: "Man found alive with two legs."

Manalive mixes mirth and philosophy the way only Chesterton can.  It's a great read, I had some good laughs, and I might have learned a few things along the way. My only regret (as with most of Chesterton's fiction) is that it isn't a more substantial work. But Chesterton probably knew that words on paper aren't nearly as substantial as actually having tea on the roof.

Arbitrary rating: 4.5 out of 5 bizarre celebrations of the normal