I love unicorns. I have since I was five and never stopped. Of course my taste in styles of unicorns have changed...to an extent. I've been known to fall for unicorns that are extra sparkly and/or purple. This Christmas was unicorn filled! I decided to devote a blog post to all my lovely new unicorn items.
I adore this little, sweet unicorn statue. Dustin's mom bought it for me for Christmas. She's different from all my other unicorns; she looks edgy and cool, but still adorable. I was so excited when I opened a box to find her.
This is a magical, wishing unicorn Dustin bought for me. I can change the background between Autumn forest, waterfall, sunset beach, or rainbow meadow. He came with a book; in spite of its stupid title Unicorn Wishes, actually contains worthwhile information about unicorn mythology.
This is Clara. She's my unicorn Pillow Pet; she is the perfect complement to my Snuggie. Dustin's parents bought her for me. She's so FLUFFY I THINK I'M GONNA DIE! And she's purple!
And lastly, here's Zombies VS. Unicorns! It's an anthology of short stories (50/50 zombies and unicorns) edited by Holly Black and Justine Larabalestier. Dustin bought this for me. It's a fantastic collection of stories!
Poking around knowyourmeme.com and found out about the Cornified meme. There's an awesome site called cornify.com. It's basically a parody service site in which you can cover your website and any photos with unicorns and glitter. Needless to say, I had way too much fun with the site. I love me some unicorns, so that plus boredom, and free time late at night = these kinds of photos.
Dustin and I have been snow dancing our butts off and our efforts have definitely paid off. This is the fifth snowday we've had, but today was the first time we actually played out in the snow. Making a snowman didn't quite pan out the way I thought it would, and we eventually abandoned the idea in favor of other snow creations including a snow unicorn! I was going to originally make a 3-d full bodied unicorn snow sculpture, but there were support and snow packing issues. Instead, I made a 3-d unicorn head mixed media sculpture incorporating pine tree branches and a pinecone in with the snow. Dustin & I made snow angels, and I added an anime otaku touch by adding a Bleach squad captain badge and cat ears to them. We slid down the hill behind our apartment building on our butts since we lacked sleds; Dustin rolled down the hill once. I think tomorrow we may try sledding in one of the parks in "sleds" made out of household things like a laundry basket and big tupperware lid. Posted some pictures.
I have a guest post featured on book blog Tempting Persephone for the Pursuing the Lioness Challenge. You guys should check it out and join the challenge if you love the books.
Valentine's day weekend was full and fun. Friday went on a double date with Dustin's parent's + his grandma to Rafferty's and the movies; we saw The Wolfman. It was the first time I'd been to see a scary movie with a boy before. ;) I enjoyed the movie, and glad it reflected the original old Hollywood B-movie style just fancied up with A-movie treatment. I was genuinely scared and grossed out a number of times--had to close my eyes and squeeze the circulation out of Dustin's arms. Saturday, we went to Shogun (a Japanese restuarant); it was packed, but we snagged a table simply by saying we didn't want to sit at the grill. After dinner we saw Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightening Thief. It was a fun, epic fantasy movie--just what I wanted to see--with some great twists on traditional Greek mythology. Sunday, Dustin took me to dinner at the local restaurant Avalon on Bardstown road. I've been wanting to go there ever since I first moved to Louisville. It's pricey but not exorbiant. The food is fantastic along with the service. I was disappointed a bit by the plain, modern interior. With a name like Avalon, I was expecting sparkles and Apple trees/garden or maybe something remotely Arthurian related. I'm hoping to go again in the summer, so we can sit on the garden patio with lights all around.
I've decided to implement the use of theme days in my blog simply because it helps me focus my writing. The genre of Fantasy is my favorite book/movie genre. It's what led me down the road to Medieval Studies. Unicorns are among the most common creatures found in Fantasy. My favorite unicorn of all time is Peter S. Beagle's Last Unicorn. This movie and book has been in my life ever since I can remember and has had a profound influence on me. Every year, I always rewatch the movie and reread, at least, my favorite parts of the novel.
The story is summed up in the title: The Last Unicorn. One day, a unicorn hears two hunters in her wood talking; before leaving, the older hunter urges her to stay in her wood where she is safe for she is the last unicorn in the world. Later the unicorn learns all the other unicorns were driven into the sea by the Red Bull. The unicorn ventures out into the world to in search of her kind. She encounters a clumsy magician, Schmendrick and a sharp-tongued, older woman named Molly Grue. Together they journey to find the Red Bull and the other unicorns. Daring adventures and romance occur throughout their journey. At the end, all the unicorns are freed. The unicorn finds her companions have left as great an impact on her life as she has theirs.
This is one of the most beautiful stories ever told. The plot is intricately woven with excitement, passion, and sadness. It's very creative and not in any way predictable. The prose flows naturally and easily. Many different themes appear within the story such as what constitutes happiness; how much control do we have over our fate; death or immortality: which would you choose; what is the nature of a hero; what purpose do fairytales serve; and of course, true love never fails. There is lots of play with illusion and reality. The descriptions of settings and characters are vivid. Songs are interspersed throughout the book. Furthermore, there are so many memorable lines both witty and moving. I found myself completely immersed in the world, watching all the events unfold before me. The ending is powerful, bittersweet, and perfect. Every time, I read or watch it, I am deeply moved.
The characters are multi-dimensional, and I cared about them all. No one is unforgettable, not even the side characters that appear in one or two chapters. There are no "stock-characters." Everyone has a purpose and reason for going on the journey. I really like how the unicorn's character is a paradox, both simple and complex. A struggle of identity can be seen when she is transformed into a human; she becomes undefinable. Furthermore, her relationship with the humans is not portrayed as being perfect, wonderful, friends for life. Schmendrick may be a poor excuse for a magician and makes lots of jokes, but he's not in the story only for comic relief. Molly Grue is not a Maid Marian-damsel-in-distress type; as I mentioned before, she's an older woman (likely in her 30s), with a sharp tongue and mind; she's strong and fiercely protective of the unicorn. She's more the protector of the group than Schmendrick. In a way, all the main characters in the book start out lost and search for something whether it be power, a new life, love, happiness, or simply unicorns.
The movie follows very closely with the book as Peter S. Beagle did write the screenplay. The voice actors are stellar. The movie is very beautifully animated and full of lush colors and detailed scenery. The unicorn is drawn like the traditional medieval unicorn--"Tail like a lion's tail, deerlegs, goatfeet..."--in other words it does not look like a horse with a horn on it's head (Beagle is really adamant about that fact).
The introduction looks like a moving version of the famous, medieval unicorn tapestries. The music is very soft and beautiful and mostly performed by the band America. There are some exceptions, the song "Now That I'm a Woman" performed by Mia Farrow (the voice of the unicorn) is not that stellar. However, another singer replaced her in the duet "That's All I Have to Say"--which is a very pretty song. The intro song has actually been covered by a band called In-Mood featuring the female vocalist Juliette. The movie was animated by TopCraft Studio which later became the now famous Studio Ghibli (which produces Hayao Miyazaki's films like Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke).
I highly recommend both the novel and movie. The novel has been republished In spite of the fact that he said he never would, Beagle has also written a sequel or coda to The Last Unicorn; it is entitled: Two Hearts and features all the same characters as the first book and new one, Sooz--who will be the protagonist in another novel. You can read the the story for free on his site. Also, if you can find it, there is The Last Unicorn: The Lost Version which is essentially the unfinished, rough draft of The Last Unicorn; it's very different from the final product and worth reading to see the evolution of the story. Most importantly, I urge that you support Peter S. Beagle by purchasing both from Conlan Press. He has been in an ongoing legal battle with Granada Studios over the money he was never given for writing the screenplay The Last Unicorn. You can find all the details at Conlan Press's website. If you purchase from there, half the money goes to Peter S. Beagle.
Lastly, I just found out there was stage production of The Last Unicorn written and performed. Apparently it has been rewritten and scheduled to be performed this Fall by the Promethean Theatre Ensemble in Chicago. Opening night is October 17! They have a blog of progress too! If anyone goes to see this let me know how it turned out!
So, for my history course on the Black Death, I'm reading this book and reviewing it. Small crisis surrounding this; didn't realize my critical review of it was due today in class until yesterday when I was going to work. I hadn't even started the book. I genuinely thought the book was going to be the last text read in class and the review was due sometime in November. Thankfully, my professor was very understanding and lenient, especially since this is a grad class (albeit mixed with undergrad). He's letting me turn it in Friday for a late grade. I was half expecting to be denounced as a heretic and burned at the stake for suggesting such a thing. All my professor said was "Friday?" Anyway, started the book last night when I got home, and decided I don't like. It's boring and Lame--note the capital L.
I think Hatcher is a historical snob--especially reading his preface. The book is a rather dull read and Hatcher keeps beating you over the head with the same words and themes over and over. He's trying for a blend of fiction and history and failing miserably. He doesn't seek to try to develop his characters (because oh no, that's going into the bad, evil, dirty territory of "the novel") and really doesn't allow for them to be even human. It's realistic to believe Master John (the main character and a fictional one) was a devout priest, strictly by the rules, kind of guy. However, for him to never get irritated with his congregation--who act like a bunch of scared, dumb sheep, wailing and lamenting all the time--or think about anything other than his congregation and the plague is silly. At some point, he has to think of himself, if only in the sense of "I'm hungry and need sleep." Hatcher is trying to be too objective and so focused on historical accuracy, that he can't even create interesting dialogue. Everything sounds like something that was previously written down in a sermon or parish court or manorial court document. There are many historical books that can read as easily as fiction or blend the lines between, for example Four Queens by Nancy Goldstone. There are other novels that are very grounded in history for example Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. Really, Hatcher doesn't provide the reader with any more insight to the mind of 14th century witness to the plague than any other well written history book on the subject. He really should just have dropped the pretense of fiction altogether and written a history book. He could have left out Master John and everything would've been about the same. I could have read the parish and manorial court documents myself and gotten the same story.
Moving on to another Medieval book that is fiction but well grounded in history is Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth. It's about the building of a major Cathedral in a town called Kingsbridge and the interactions between the people involved in building it. I've been intrigued by this book for a long time, but daunted by its size. I believe it's 900 pages. The book has great renown among the mainstream readers and apparently historians too. The book was brought up in class today as an example of a novel that succeeds in keeping true to history. I've been looking for a good Medieval novel to read (as I keep reading a slew of bad ones: The Illuminator and Mistress of the Art of Death; granted I haven't finished the latter, but so far I'm unimpressed) that has a merging of romance of action with strong female characters. This just might be what I'm looking for! It has the added bonus of smut--LOLZ. Apparently, there's also an 8 hour tv series being made based on the book; here's a link to the site. It looks very impressive and grand scale! Anyone read this book and if so, impressions?
Lastly, I was in the bookstore the other day looking at the Tamora Pierce books trying to find one in a size big enough to turn into a purse. I saw this book entitled Rampant which had a woman, a sword, and unicorn on it. For a moment, I thought it was an awesome new cover Tamora Pierce's Lioness Rampant. As many of you know, Sword + Woman + Unicorn = instant win for Lan. I was intrigued, so I read the summary on the inside of the cover. It's about KILLER UNICORNS and a girl who slays them!
Official Summary:
Astrid Llewelyn has always scoffed ather eccentric mother’s stories about killer unicorns. But when one of the monsters attacks her boyfriend in the woods – thereby ruining any chance of him taking her to prom – Astrid learns that unicorns are real and dangerous, and she has a family legacy to uphold. Her mother packs her off to Rome to train as a unicorn hunter at the ancient cloisters the hunters have used for centuries.
However, at the cloisters, all is not what is seems. Outside, the unicorns wait to attack. And within, Astrid faces other, unexpected threats: from crumbling, bone-covered walls that vibrate with a terrible power to the hidden agendas of her fellow hunters to – perhaps most dangerously of all – her growing attraction to a handsome art student… and a relationship that could jeopardize everything.
Igrew up with image of magical, beautiful, sometimes dangerous, but never evil unicorns. I'm very much steeped in the tradition of Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn. I'm not gonna lie, I'm still very much a little girl at heart when it comes to unicorns. I love them and always will. However, this is a story that is supposed to, when reading, create a strong dislike if not hatred of them. I don't know how I feel about this. Confused, afraid, angry. How dare you turn unicorns from shining, beautiful, wondrous creatures to venomous, blood thirsty beasts? Though now that I think about it, that's kind of how the unicorn hunters view the unicorns in Bruce Coville's Into the Land of Unicorns series. Anyway, it's different, so maybe I'll give it a shot. Though, I'm not sure how I feel about the modern setting. This book could go terribly wrong or could be a distinct work of genius. Again, any readers with opinions to share?
