Plague Dogs (book review)

A couple days ago I finished the book Plague Dogs by Richard Adams. The story follows two animal test subjects: a fox terrier named Snitter who is receiving experimental brain surgeries, and the German Shepherd Rowf, who is being routinely drowned to the point of near death to see how it impacts his resilience under water long-term. One night, the caged area that they are confined to doesn't get secured as usual and the two make their escape.

Before reading this book, I received a lot of warning about how sad it is. This author wrote Watership Down, a book about rabbits with haunting descriptions of their home being destroyed, of being caught in snares, of censorship, authoritarianism, control through humiliation, and war. He also did Shardik, which had an egregiously long segment describing the psychology and methodology of a child slaver as he conducted his business.

Of the three, Plague Dogs has the saddest title and it opens with Rowf in the drowning tank. I was braced for a tough read, that's for sure.

The world of fiction is notoriously cruel to dogs. There is a website called "Does the Dog Die?" It catalogues movies with lists of potential triggers within them. These can be anything, but the site is named after the incredibly common trope that if a dog is introduced, it will very likely be killed. I think it's just an easy bet that many people in an audience will have experienced the passing of a beloved pet, and because animals don't typically drive the plot, it's a fairly low-stakes way of pulling at heart strings. After seeing the trope enough times, however, it can feel a little uncreative.

All this to say, I was surprised that Plague Dogs was actually not that grim compared to Adams' other works. Unlike Shardik, where I felt misled into thinking I was supposed to approve of the protagonist and his allies until about midway through the novel, Plague Dogs makes it extremely clear how you're supposed to feel about the various characters. The lead antagonist is named Dr. Boycott. His Animal Research facility initializes to A.R.S.E. The woman that sold Snitter to him is Annie Mossity (animosity). It's to the point of feeling a little detached from reality. Kind of cartoonish. To me, this had the effect of taking the edge off some of the more disturbing descriptions.

In general, Adams seemed like he was just having fun with this book. Sometimes he would speak in his own voice to the reader. Example being when he introduced the reporter Digby Driver a good way into the story. He says something like "Now dear readers, you may be asking yourself, what in the world does this have to do with Snitter and Rowf?"

Sometimes the narrative would devolve into strange wordplay while in the middle of a fairly mundane description. For example:

"Hither, in the speckled moonlight, from Harter plantations to the northern bank of the beck, came Rowf; lame of a paw, muddy of coat, froth of a jaw, hoarse of a throat, taken apart, down of a heart." 

Totally needless. I'm not really complaining though. 

Near the end, Adams references himself in a debate between two conservationist sailors. They say something like "That Adams, a well-intentioned novice naturalist who anthropomorphises rabbits, making people think they're splendid when they're actually overpopulating"

If memory serves, Watership Down is told solely from the perspective of rabbits, while Shardik almost completely follows humans, even if it is about their relationship to a giant bear. Plague Dogs splits the difference by alternating between the two canine escapees and the humans that they impact.

I think the theme between these three works is "humanity's cruelty to animals". So of course this book was dark, but it felt like Adams sitting down with you to tell a story and share his most common philosophic quandaries. Compare this with Shardik, which he apparently said was his "masterpiece". No one else thinks this but it makes sense that he did. The worldbuilding in that book is almost weirdly thorough. This led to Shardik feeling highly produced while Plague Dogs is much more relaxed, despite the dark concepts. Almost stream of conscious.

My favourite character was the tod, a fox that helps the Plague Dogs adapt to the wilderness in return for a share of their killings (tod isn't his name, it's Scottish slang for "fox". For some reason only the animals in this book use the term). Of the three, he's the most cunning, pragmatic, and stealthy. This causes him to be at odds with Rowf, who is big, strong, and overtly loyal. Snitter, at a size and weight inbetween the two of them, more medically fragile and with less of a niche for survival, acts as a mediator.

After a couple fallings-out, Rowf finally chases the tod away for good, feeling that he had become over-reliant on the dogs' strength, and frustrated with the small canine's emotionless demeanour regarding their turmoil. 

But as winter sets in, without experience or guidance in how to handle the cold and scarcity, survival becomes difficult. In a last ditch effort, Snitter strikes out on his own to find the tod. Miraculously they cross paths, but the former teammate is injured and being hunted by hostile fox terriers.

Despite the irony of his pursuers being of the same breed, he quickly recognizes Snitter. He is cordial, blunt about the situation and its hopelessness, and quick to advise the little dog on how to get out. I was a bit annoyed that Snitter never managed to pass on the tod's last message to Rowf. It was something like "Tell the big lad I said 'ta-ta'. He was a great mazer, always good with the yows". I don't think it would have been important for either the sender or the receiver of the message. It was probably most important to Snitter, who saw the three of them as kind of a family unit, and so was touched that in his final moments the tod showed no resentment toward Rowf after he'd chased him away from the party.

Even in the last thirty pages, Snitter brings up that he needs to tell Rowf the tod's last words. He says it's important but he can't remember. Rowf says it couldn't have been anything nice. This just felt like a plot thread that didn't lead anywhere. 

I think it was kind of cowardly not to give the sheep power of speech. As the dogs learn that they will need to kill to survive, it would have made it much more awkward if their prey was able to communicate with them.

Afterall the dogs can talk to each other. I would accept that this can only be done between those of the same species. While they can barely communicate with the tod, they hear him as having a thick accent. This could easily be interpreted as, while they aren't the same species, they're both canine, resulting in difficult but possible communication. 

But the dogs talk to a mouse and a rabbit, and overhear a cat. A mouse is not closer to a dog than a sheep is.

It was fun that Snitter's hallucinations tended to come true. At one point he predicts that the humans won't shoot and instead give them a chicken. Later, they come across some farmers. Having heard rumours of the dogs carrying bubonic plague, they toss over a chicken to placate them, not wanting to shoot and risk their bodies contaminating the property. Rowf, who had thought his friend was losing his mind, now views him with genuine reverence.

Snitter's hallucinations also lead them to board a train, which helps them bypass the military which, due to media sensationalism, had been summoned to kill them.

It's almost comical that Snitter has a list of humans he accidentally kills throughout the book. After a man is shot, rumours fly that it was one of the escaped tenants of Animal Research that did it. The idea of humans gossiping "I know one of those dogs shot that man" is absurd. Except we know it to be true! Snitter accidentally got his claw hooked on the trigger.

Although, despite his beliefs, he did not kill his former master, Mr. Wood. He had been hospitalized after getting hit by a bus trying to save his dog. This led Snitter falling into his sister, Annie Mossity's care, who, in resentment, sold him to Animal Research and fabricated a lie about him running away.

Probably the part of the book that made me genuinely feel saddest was Snitter's recollection of everyday life with Mr. Wood, how good it was and how he felt responsible for his death. Made me think of my cats. Especially Kieran, as he's pretty much a dog in a cat's body. 

All this time, I was bracing myself for a bittersweet end. I'd heard so much about how depressing this book was. I didn't see how things could possibly turn out well for them. The dogs had no end goal, just wandering aimlessly, avoiding hostile humans, slowly starving while winter set in. However, with the reveal of Mr. Wood being alive, I could see a potential pathway for a happy ending!

Indeed, Snitter's old master manages to find and adopt both dogs. The less-evil humans are offered some redemption. Mr. Powell saves the monkey that was having social deprivation experiments done on it and quits his job. We learn that he had a sympathetic reason for being on the path he was, as he has a dying daughter whose only hope of survival is a new cure that might happen through animal research.

Digby Driver offers to take care of Snitter and Rowf while Mr. Wood is recovering.  He also plans a smear campaign against A.R.S.E., which looks to be on a path to getting its funding cut. Meaning that the Plague Dogs escape indirectly managed to shut down the operation of their former captors.

It's still a book by Richard Adams, so inevitably it has dark spots. But all in all, it had a surprisingly light tone and positive ending considering the author's body of work. Honestly, it treated its dogs better than most examples in media.

If I were to offer one piece of light criticism regarding the ending, it would be that it felt a little early. There were a few plot threads that didn't get addressed. Rowf, never having had a master, is named by one of the sailors that rescues them near the end. The choice is made by the sound of his bark, which of course, is how we've known him all this time. The sailor henceforth is repeatedly referred to as "Rowf's man".

All the drowning experiments had led to the German shepherd having a debilitating fear of water. The sailors rescued them after Rowf's valiant act of carrying Snitter through the ocean with a reveal that he had indeed become resilient due to the experiments. It would have been fitting for Rowf to be adopted by a sailor and live on a ship, the water representing freedom rather than captivity.

Snitter even points this out at the very end "Did you want to be adopted by that man?" and Rowf says something like "Eh, your master is good too. And I wouldn't want to leave you." I think Adams thought of it but was just done with writing. Maybe the sailor would have been a better choice for temporary owner during Mr. Wood's recovery.

It also would have been nice to see it confirmed that A.R.S.E. got shut down, even as an epilogue. Maybe see the final article with the "darling doggies" slant that Digby Driver had been planning. Maybe a confrontation between Mr. Wood and Annie Mossity.

But this is light criticism. Even great books seem to have difficulty sticking the landing. 

Shardik (book review)

This book was written by Richard Adams, the same person that made the better-known works Watership Down and Plague Dogs. Unlike those two, Shardik is mostly told from a human's perspective, rather than than an animal's. That being said, the book is titled after the name of a giant bear that is held sacred by a fictional group of people known as the Ortelgans.

And while most of the story is from the perspective of a man named Kelderek, it does start from Shardik's point of view. Despite being described as being of impossible size and never having known fear, the story begins with the bear being humbled. He's retreating from a fire, gets burned and passes out after being dealt grievous injury.

When I first read this, I thought that the story would be about industrialization and the destruction of nature, even Earth's mightiest creatures being dwarfed by the impending threat of technology. Looking back at the beginning, I understand why I thought this. The descriptions of the fire, while likely accurate, don't match what I would associate with one.

"Afraid -- this breaker of trees, whose tread shook the ground -- of what could it be afraid?

Shardik is described as old and of unmatched strength. It seems odd for it to be so taken off guard by something occuring naturally. It's stated that, never previously knowing defeat, Shardik turns to attack its pursuer, only to be repelled. I suppose I don't see the temptation to try and physically fight a fire.

 "And then at last appeared a visitant yet more terrible than the giant bear"

This vague mention of the flames as being a "visitant" made me feel invited to speculate on the nature of Shardik's aggressor. A "strange" and acrid smell is stated to permeate the forest. Since this is being told from the perspective of animals, it gives the impression of something alien to them.

But it's just a forest fire.

Despite feeling a little misdirected, this first part is important to the rest of the story. Here, Shardik develops a phobia of fire, which is impactful at numerous other points. It also describes both Shardik's might and limitations. As a bear of legend, the Ortelgans believe him to be the "Might of God", and while his power is indeed impressive enough to change the course of the story time and time again, this book is largely about watching him slowly succumb to his wounds. Not just from the fire, but through misadventure throughout the book.

Shardik escapes the fire by falling into a river. A young hunter named Kelderek stumbles upon him. Being from a tribe of bear worshippers, he recognizes Shardik as the lost subject of their mythos and chooses to report his finding to the authorities back home.

Kelderek is known as "Play With the Children" because he would rather play games with the local youth over pursuing women, consuming substances, gambling or other passtimes considered more appropriate for his age. As he demands the presence of higher and higher authorities to tell his story to, refusing anyone of middling status at the risk of his own life, various people blame this on his "simplicity".

One complaint I have is that, despite Kelderek's mentality being treated almost as an allusion to what we would understand as a cognitive impairment, it doesn't come across that way at all. We are privy to his thoughts, which are complex. He often feels like the audience surrigate, reacting to the eccentricites of The Baron, the Priestesses, and the High Priestess known as The Tuginda. In later parts of the story, Kelderek's knowledge of trade is important. 

Once he manages to impart his message, he learns that the Ortelgans once ruled the largest settlement in the region, Bekla. At this time, Shardik walked among them. After the bear was betrayed, he left and the Ortelgans fell from power. There is a tale that Shardik would one day return, presenting himself to a man and woman that would be the only ones safe from his wrath.

Indeed, it appears that Kelderek is the man of legend as he and a group including The Tuginda, assumed to be his female counterpart, take it upon themselves to find and follow the bear. The priestesses manage to quell its anger through ritualistic song, with great effort and shaky success, enduring a few casualties. Kelderek however, is able to walk right up to Shardik and take naps laying against him without any resistance.

As the story progresses, this favorable treatment of the protagonist gets more and more annoying. Shardik saves Kelderek from peril numerous times despite having great incentive to maul him.

The biggest twist of the book is learning that the people we are following are actually the villains.  Kelderek is swayed by a low authority of Ortelga to drug, imprison, and weaponize Shardik against Bekla. As this goes against the sacred principles of The Tuginda, he exhiles her and uses her authority to his advantage, telling her followers that his demands are hers, leading to the death of one of the priestesses.

On their way, the army stops to pillage the civilization of Gelt. We aren't actually present for the capture of Bekla but we get descriptions of it. Apparently, the presiding General is coaxed out by the Ortelgans commiting child sacrifices until he agreed to leave. Under the new leadership, it's said that the slave trade gets expanded.

Shardik escapes after the city is taken, and it's said that Kelderek spends the better part of a year recapturing and imprisoning him. This is because he believes that his status as Priest-King is only secure if he's able to show the people that he is able to be in Shardik's presence unharmed. 

Why are the good guys going against their own beliefs to weaponize the subject of their worship? Why would they exhile their own priestess and use her voice for their own means? Why are they attacking a city unprovoked? Why are they invading civilizations that are unrelated to their conflict? They're the good guys and they're committing child sacrifices? Expanding the slave trade?

When I list it out, it seems obvious. But we're only given Kelderek's perspective, and it's all written in a detached way, as if this is normal for the times. His distaste of the child sacrifice and refusal to be present as it happens, and his regret about the slave trade are framed as testement to his quality of character. His ability to pray in the presence Shardik who is hostile to all else, and the fact that he marches through the city instead of being carried as an acknowledgement that Shardik is the true king and himself merely a servent, is presented as a show of humility.

But Kelderek is the highest authority, and all these negative outcomes were either enabled or carried out expressly by him.

I grew really irritated by the protagonist. 

In the second half of the book we're introduced to the perspectives of the Beklans and their allies. As it turns out, the warlike nature of the Ortelgans and their affinity to the slave trade are not normal at all. This is where it feels like the narrative gives us permission to acknowledge the messed up nature of Kelderek's actions and it feels validating.

From here on, the writing becomes more introspective. After an assassination attempt causes structural damage to Shardik's enclosure, the bear escapes and Kelderek leaves in pursuit. On his journey he encounters the ghosts of fallen soldiers, he gets mistaken for a slaver and witnesses the resentment of the citizens, and he remembers his betrayal of The Tuginda with grave regret.

He also finds himself at some deep fissures in the earth known as The Streels. Shardik dips into them and then when Kelderek is assailed by some locals, the bear leaps out and kills the attackers. Later on we find out that in this world, this place is like an opening into Hell and anyone who enters it is cursed.

Shardik is weak from his extensive stay as a prisoner in Bekla and wounded from his enclosure being set on fire in the assassination attempt. Yet the mighty animal plods on, seemingly in the direction of his homeland Ortelga. This eventually leads Kelderek to the Transvrako, an inhospitable land where criminals go to escape the law.

Kelderek finds a trap for game and chooses to wait for the person who set it, intending to beg them for food and shelter. This proves successful, as a hunter named Ruvik appears and accomodates our weary traveller. When Kelderek mentions that he's looking for a giant bear, he's lead to a small encampment where The Tuginda has been staying. As it turns out, Ruvik found her travelling the Transvrako and offered the High Priestess his protection.

I became very interested in this citizen of The Transvrako. Kelderek hates him. He attributes his charitable acts toward The Tuginda as a merit of the High Priestess being able to tame the supposedly wild man. Kelderek sees Ruvik in his own home, randomly assumes that he's about to be killed and begs him to make it quick. Confused, Ruvik just offers some words of inspiration to keep one's morale while in The Transvrako. Later, when Kelderek would encounter actually depraved individuals, he would always mentally compare them to Ruvik. He's as obsessed with him as he is with Shardik and The Tuginda.

I wasn't sure if the book was actually trying to present Ruvik as a monster that was swayed to civility based on circumstance, or if this was just the product of Kelderek's status as an unreliable narrator. When we look at what we know of Ruvik's behaviour, his actions come down to: helping Kelderek, protecting The Tuginda, and offering the two advice on how to traverse The Transvrako. All pretty benevolent. We know he's a criminal, and we're never told what for, but The Tuginda, who does know, offers him a pardon if they survive the journey. So she at least believes him to be redeemable.

I don't know where Kelderek gets his superiority complex from. He grew up in a small civilization as a hunter that was thought to have a child's simplicity. Also, he himself is a criminal that was exiled to The Transvrako. 

As they continue, they encounter Melathys, a former priestess under The Tuginda. She appeared earlier in the book as one of the group who was charged with taming Shardik through song. After one of her peers was slain in the effort, she lost her courage and abandoned her station.

She now appears in the remainder of a rough civilization that was developed by the former Baron of Ortelga, one of the authorities that Kelderek reported to earlier in the book. Both of these characters took to The Transvrako as outcasts for their dissenting views on the subject of Shardik.

However, at this point The Baron has passed away and Melathys and some of the locals are struggling to keep what little order they had cultivated in this inhospitable land. The former priestess is overjoyed at the sight of The Tuginda and takes her appearance as opportunity to work toward atonement.

Kelderek falls in love with Melathys. This bothered me because: 

1. After all he's done I don't think he deserves a romance arc.
2.  Part of his character is that he is supposedly as simple as a child, which led to him being chaste even when he held his high position of authority and it was considered weird
3. One of his reasons is that he sees her as a kindred spirit as a criminal of Ortelga. He even becomes jealous of her, since The Tuginda seems to forgive her more readily than she does for him.

But the scale of their crimes is completely different. Kelderek poisoned, imprisoned, and potentially mortally wounded what they believe to be The Power of God. Melathys just quit her job.

Also, this dynamic undoes what little chance Kelderek had of redemption, in my eyes. Melathys feels that it's his duty to continue his quest to protect Shardik. This causes him to think that the bear is standing in the way of them being able to live a simple and peaceful life as a couple. So he decides to kill Shardik

It wasn't much earlier in the book that Kelderek had monologued internally, at great length about how he would follow this great animal, enduring hardship and under pain of death, in service as means of atonement for all the wrongs he'd committed. At this point, he had come to have almost the opposite perspective that he'd gained on his ascent to power. Him changing so drastically and suddenly again made me lose faith that he had the capacity to develop any consistency of character.

Before he's able to do anything, however, he's captured by a notorious child slaver that was enabled under the Ortelgan rule of Bekla. Thus begins an incredibly drawn out and tedious telling of the methods of enslavement as Kelderek is, once again, forced to experience first-hand the consequences of his actions.

Internally, he compares the slaver to Ruvik. He'd also previously made this comparison for someone who had said he wanted to forcibly "take" Melathys.

Eventually, in his final act, the wounded Shardik kills the slaver, freeing Kelderek and the children. They are received by the Yeldashay, who were pursuing them. One of the children who happened to be a member of their royalty, advocates for Kelderek as a friend under hardship.

The Yeldashay host a death ceremony atop the water, honouring Shardik. I was happy that this wasn't done in the manner of the Ortelgans, who wouldn't have deserved it at this point.

For some convoluted reason, Kelderek is deemed to be best suited for the development of a major civilization in The Transvrako. He marries Melathys and the story ends when he receives an ambassador from a far-off land and explains the events post Shardik's death.

All the way until the end I was hoping for a reappearance of Ruvik. It was kind of like the last bit of The Silmarillion when I was hoping for a mention of the Hobbits, which eventually came in the four last pages.

There was a similar precedent here. The last chapter includes waiting for a ceremony, to which The Tuginda was summoned. As we are told she is still in The Transvrako, which is where Ruvik lives, him having a history as her protector, and she having offered him a pardon, it would make sense for him to be reestablished in this new civilization, where other people had gathered to recover from their past.

This theory might even be true. We'll never know, as the story ends before The Tuginda arrives.

All in all, this was a long and heavy read. It wasn't badly written, but the first half was difficult as Kelderek's status as an unreliable author hadn't been made clear. You wind up cheering against the protagonist, and his redemption doesn't feel earned. All in all, I'm glad I read it but it wasn't an enjoyable experience and don't think I would recommend it to anyone else. 

2025 Books (Aunt Julia & the Scriptwriter, Nation, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Awe, Is a River Alive)

I'm going to do a rapid-fire review of each of the novels I read in 2025 that I didn't get around to. I already posted about The Silmarillion, The Children of Hurin, and The Weather Detective, but there are five more.

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter

Just for the fun of it, let's start with my least favourite and end with my most. This book is a classic, written by the well-respected Mario Vargas Llosa. From the style, you can tell the author is competent, but the story itself didn't hold any substance for me.

The book is about the life of a guy named Mario (named for the author) who works at a radio station in Peru and has a crush on his Aunt (not by blood) Julia (named after the author's first wife). Every other chapter is one of the stories told by a renowned and eccentric Bolivian scriptwriter, Pedro Comacho, who has moved into town.

This book commits a pet peeve of mine, in that the drivers of both sides of the story are both writers. I just think that's a little too easy for an author, although I suppose it gets a bit of a pass because it's semi-autobiographical. Part of the main plot is Mario lacking inspiration and seeking the mentorship of Comacho. Reading about a writer being bad at writing is always tedious. This bothered me in The World According to Garp as well.

Comacho's stories don't impact the plot of the book in any meaningful way, other than being referenced in the main plot occassionally and I suppose as justification of his reputation. Perhaps we were supposed to track his mental deterioration through these, as increasingly he has difficulty keeping track of the storylines and after the flash-forward we see him reduced to a more humble figure. If so, I didn't mark a noticeable change in writing style as he became more confused.

In the main storyline, Mario tries to convince his Aunt Julia, after she is widowed by his Uncle by blood, to marry him. She's apprehensive, as she believes that due to his youth, the relationship would be doomed to fail. Eventually she agrees under the condition that he promises five years of dedication. The rest of the book concerns lashback from the family and the legal hoops they have to jump through to make the marriage happen.

Throughout all of this, Mario keeps reminding everyone that they are not related by blood. However, he never stops referring to her as Aunt Julia. I really think he should have dropped the familial honourific if he wanted to decrease how creepy the situation looked.

The final section is a flash-forward to Mario explaining how things all went down. Apparently, despite Aunt Julia's belief that they would only last five years, they managed eight! Now Mario is married to his cousin. So the suspicion of him being incestuous is bolstered. This also weirdly frames the adventure as a success, even though ultimately Aunt Julia's reservations were correct.

But that barely even gets covered. Mario, after some success abroad, returns to Peru and runs into some old friends. The book ends covering at length the stories of two side characters.

I just really couldn't find anything to take away. The alternating storytelling never paid off, the incestuous overtones were a little gross, and the conclusion almost ignored the topics leading up to it.

Nation

One of the few Terry Pratchet books that are not part of the Discworld series. A boy, Mau, embarks on a quest as part of a coming-of-age ceremony but is intercepted by a calamitous tidal wave. He manages to return home but there is no one to greet him. It becomes his job to rebuild The Nation.

Alternately, a girl of equivalent age, Daphne, finds herself shipwrecked on the island. The two meet and learn to communicate and survive with each other.

Mau takes it upon himself to restore The Nation, guided by the voices of his ancestors (I think they're called The Fathers?) Eventually, survivors from surrounding islands come and contribute what they can. Eventually, they have to contend with mutineers from the boat Daphne was on, and then eventually, the larger trouble of collonialism when they are discovered by her aristocratic family.

I don't have much to say about this one.  It's competently written. There is a clear and noble goal with obstacles for the protagonists, and eventually an antagonist that needs to be dealt with. There are themes of learning what makes a national identity and a bit of an exploration of collonialism.

I find Terry Pratchet's books are usually solid and unobjectionable, but also don't stick in my memory too well. You can feel his tone in most of his work, which is a kind of a playful snark.  This didn't feel too different from Discworld.

I liked Mau getting sassy with The Fathers. The voices seem to know what needs to be done, and they have the same objective, but they have very little understanding of how to do anything, and are very entitled.

It bothered me that Mau kept insisting that he "wasn't a man" because he'd given up his child's soul to do the coming of age ceremony, and had failed to receive an adult one by completing the ritual. It seemed obvious to me that he had fulfilled his task, which was to escape the island and return to The Nation. But I guess his perspective was that, there being nothing to return to, there was no one to give him his adult soul. So he refers to himself throughout the book as a demon, which to me seemed unwarranted.

I liked that Mau and Daphne both seemed like relatively intelligent people, who speculated at each others actions when unable to communicate in a reasonable way. They often get things wrong, but it felt a bit more realistic than some depictions of cultures clashing. Their gradual ability to learn each other's languages felt pretty natural, too.

I was a little disappointed when adults with skillsets started showing up and helping out. It took a bit of the pressure off and sidelined Mau a little bit.

All in all, a solid read. 

The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories 

When I read Staring at the Sun, the author quoted The Death of Ivan Ilyich as a profound resource for exploring the concept of mortality. When I picked it up, I thought it was a standalone novel, but it's actually just one of a collection of short stories.

I brought this book to Kenabeek this year. I know that my grandfather is a huge Dostoevsky fan, so I thought that might expand to Russian literature in general. As it turns out, he actually quite dislikes Tolstoy, in large part because he's been recommended to him so much from people that followed my line of thinking. I don't blame him, I can relate to having an affinity to something specific, just for people to link it with whatever large figure belongs to the given genre.

I feel a little warmer to Tolstoy, though. I read some of his short stories for a Russian Studies class I took in University, none of which were included in the collection I'm reviewing. 

This book contains: The Raid, The Woodfellings, Three Deaths, Polikushka, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, After The Ball, and The Forged Coupon. I won't go into each in-depth.

This guy is definitely a tree-talker. It was only mentioned briefly, but in The Raid the narrator says "All of Nature's barely audible nocturnal sounds that defy explanation or definition and merge into one rich, beautiful harmony that we call the stillness of night" which really resonated with me. Also, in Three Deaths, one of those is a tree, and while it isn't anthropomorphised, its felling is written in such a graphic way that it almost feels vulgar.

I learned what a Russian Stove is from this book. There kept being mentions of people sleeping on the stove, which sounded bizarre to me. As it turns out, they really did have large multipurpose structures that were used for heating, cooking, and sleeping.

Despite The Death of Ivan Ilyich being the most acclaimed work, the story that stood out the most to me was Polikushka. A draft is being held and decisions are being made about who to send to war. The local aristocratic woman doesn't want to send Polikushka, a serf and obvious choice for it, as she's warmed up to him. Instead, she decides to give him the task of transporting a large sum of money to prove his trustworthiness.

The story branches off between Polikushka's attempt to prove himself and the guy who was drafted in his stead. The Dutlov family need to buy a person to replace their son going to war. Not bribe someone, but purchase them, slavery-style. Pretty brutal.

And despite Polikushka's genuine attempt at redemption, he blunders it and winds up killing himself. With the typical, aggregious sadness iconic to Russian literature, his infant son is drowned after his wife is shocked by the news when giving him a bath. That felt a little unnecessary. 

The Forged Coupon was also pretty memorable, but not in a good way. Basically a series of events occuring in a sort of Butterfly Effect when a kid named Mitya chooses to forge a coupon. I'm sure there's all manner of things that I missed, but it gets so detached from the main storyline that you feel lost after awhile. Eventually, it works its way back to the characters it started with, I guess showing the interconnectivity of one's actions, but it doesn't end in a way that I could understand as delivering any kind of message. So the whole things was just a bit tedious.

The actual story of the Life of Ivan Ilyich is about a man who strives to achieve a good, normal, respectable life through conventional means. At one point, likely because of an accident after falling off a ladder, he develops a chronic illness that eventually takes his life. The story is mostly centred on his shifting perspective as his condition becomes worse. It also goes into the self-serving nature of his contemporaries who, despite liking him, view his death through a mostly opportunistic lense.

Since the story never gives an answer as to the mystery of his diagnosis, with doctors telling him it's either a "floating kidney" or "blind gut". The internet says it was likely pancreatic cancer, but that doesn't really link with his fall off a ladder, which the story sort of highlights as the beginning of his suffering.

Within this collection, I think The Death of Ivan Ilyich was actually a bit overrated, and in my opinion, Polikushka was the superior read. Maybe my Canadian tastes make me more agreeable to it for having a sympathetic protagonist

Awe

This book covers the sensation of awe, the experience of encountering vast mysteries that we don't understand. The author, Dacher Keltner, asserts that by engaging this sometimes underrrated emotion, we can connect our individual selves with the forces of life. It also helps in triggering dopamine and oxytocin, calm stress-related physiology, and vagus nerve response.

The book goes into how one can find awe, through what he refers to as the Eight Wonders of Life: Moral Beauty, Collective Effervescence, Wild Awe, Musical Awe, Sacred Geometries, The Fundamental It, Life and Death, and Epiphany. The framework of the book explains each of these experiences with examples.

He speaks at length about the death of his brother, which provoked in him a deep sense of awe and motivation to research and write. 

As is the case with most of these psychology non-fiction books, I took this one up on recommendation from Lee-Anne. 

At one point he interviews Pete Docter, writer of Inside Out. This is interesting because in another book I've read recently, Bittersweet, they cover the same film. In fact, Keltner cites the author, Susan Cain, on their overlapping points of research as she explored the positive side of sadness.

There was also a lot of overlap with Staring at the Sun in the Life and Death section, and was wondering if Irvin Yalom would get a shout out. He didn't.

I learned about what is referred to as the Default Mode Network. This is the part of us that perceives our individuality and what separates ourselves from others. It was a little mind blowing when he said that our sense of self is built on what we believe makes us different from others. Something I kind of knew but never thought about.

But the Default Mode Network all of who we are and it's not healthy to stay in that state for too long. It's a common frame of mind in individualist cultures. Interestingly, I'm reading Unwinding Anxiety right now and they make ample use of the phrase.  

There was a study where they had people that lived near giant trees, and people living in the city draw themselves. The people by the big trees drew themselves small, while the city folk drew themselves large. The idea here is that the first group were less engaged in their Default Mode Network than the second, feeling a heightened sense of being part of something larger due to the phenomenon of Wild Awe.

I think it's interesting that it's not just the size of things that provoke the sense, otherwise buildings, which can be massive in scale, would generate the same feeling of smallness. Instead they seem to make people feel larger and more self-centred. This kind of goes with my belief that people talk to trees, even if they don't realize it.

Culture, genetics, and individual experience impact the way we express ourselves, but there are also  universal similarities. It's pretty normal to smile when happy, frown when angry etc. regardless of where in the world you were born. Apparently the indicators that people show when they experience awe is more universal than any other emotion. Raising one's eyebrows, forming the mouth in a circle, raising hands to face, utterances similar to "whoa". Suggests that the sense of awe is hard-baked into the human condition.

Overall, I was impressed at the thoroughness of the research and the variety of examples that Keltner gave. The book was pretty compatible with Bittersweet and Staring at the Sun in its introspective nature and the search for greater meaning. 

Is a River Alive?  

This one was the Book of the Year for me. It's deserving of its own post, but I never got around to it.  I found myself wanting to read this after hearing Robert Macfarlane, the author, being interviewed on the radio. Realizing that I don't know much about rivers, I put it on my reading list.

Despite reading The Weather Detective, by Peter Wohlleben, same guy that did Hidden Life of Trees, I now see Is a River Alive? as the superior follow-up. Sometimes people need to stick to their passions. A tree guy should talk about trees, not weather. A river guys should talk about rivers. 

And Robert Macfarlane is a freak for rivers and I love it. He believes he can hear them talking and he credited some as co-authors of the book: Rio Los Cedros in Equador, the Adyar, the Cooum, and the Kosasthalaiyar of Chennai, India, the Mutehekau Shipu and the St Lawrence of Canada, and one unnamed who flows from his home in Nine Wells Wood, England.

I used the word "who" as opposed to "that" intentionally, as its how Macfarlane speaks, respecting the personhood of rivers. 

It's more action-forward than Hidden Life, in that instead of being an overview of the subject, it's a first-hand account of him engaging in preservation projects for rivers that are in danger of extinction by human interference. 

 In doing this, he links up with a variety of people who are just as passionate about niche interests. There's a mushroom lady, an insect guy, an earthquake guy... One of them is Cosmo Sheldrake, the musician that I highlighted in my Goblincore post on my main blog. He and the Rio Los Cedros wrote and performed a song together, with proper creditation to emphasize the river's personhood and right to life.

You can listen to it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH_timp2S3E&list=RDHH_timp2S3E&start_radio=1 

 I was honoured that the last and most immersive experience he wrote about was with the Mutehekau Shipu in Quebec, Canada. Not my province and not my land by heritage, but it still made me appreciate the distinct qualities of the land I've grown up on. The river flows through the Canadian Shield, which is the climate my grandparents live on.

He follows the advice of an Indigenous mentor, who told him and his travel companion to fast while paddling the Mutehekau Shipu, to identify a Mother Tree, and after these conditions were met, to ask one question which the river would answer. Through this arduous trip, Macfarlane continually frets over what his question should be. I began to fear that it would be "Is a river alive?" which I would find horrifically cheesy. Fortunately, it wound up being something strange and incomprehensible, with a similarly difficult to decipher response. "Why should a god make choices we recognize as choices?" "It may involve a great reach of mind and imagination"

I will say, I don't feel like I learned as much about rivers from Is a River Alive?, than I did about trees from The Hidden Life of Trees, probably because of the first-hand account format. It definitely had the right energy, though. 

The Children of Hurin (book review)

I wrote this review while I was up North at my grandparents. The Internet connection there is iffy, so I used the Notes app on my computer for it. I'm copy/pasting into Blogger, and if my experience doing that with Google Docs is any indication, this is going to mess up the formatting. Last time I dealt with this, I actually learned some coding to fix the issue, but I did not retain the knowledge. So I think I'll just use linebreaks to prevent the sentences from running off the page. Apologies if it hurts the readability.

Previously this year I wrote a review of The Silmarillion. It's basically a history book of the world of Middle Earth, which was created by J.R.R. Tolkien. While it wasn't published during his lifetime, it was intended to be. Eventually, this goal was actualized by his son, Christopher Tolkien. In my review, I joked that people who read this work, a project that extended beyond the author's lifetime, were on a level above those that only read the originally published material.

And there was a level beyond. Namely, those that had read what are known as the Three Great Tales of the First Age. In chronological order, they are Beren and Luthien, The Children of Hurin, and The Fall of Gondolin.

Technically there are more. There is Unfinished Tales, but from what I've heard it sounds like an incohesive collection of J.R.R.'s notes, and there's The Fall of Numenor, but it was edited by someone outside the family and contains no unique work. There is also additional material written by J.R.R. when he was alive, including poetry, short stories, instructionals, and pieces only tangentially connected to that world. So maybe there is a level of Middle Earth Nerd that is beyond even those that have read the Three Great Tales of the First Age, but I am not motivated to achieve it.

You may notice that I mentioned that The Children of Hurin is set chronologically after Beren and Luthien and wonder why I chose that place to start. In truth, I did begin in order. But the first book is more a collection of variations of the same story, interspersed with commentary by Christopher Tolkien on why he made the decisions he did. Between the first example given by the book and the brief overview I got of it in The Silmarillion, I grew a bit bored of it and chose to skip ahead.

Apparently The Fall of Gondolin does not include an ending, which means that The Children of Hurin is the only fully cohesive story outside the originally published works.

I feel slightly guilty about reading these books to begin with. At the start of this review I mentioned that, while The Silmarillion was published posthumously, it was written with that intent. By comparison, everything released after it was simply harvested from his personal notes by his son.

I listened to a video going over J.R.R.'s policy on mystery. He had stated that the best stories contain unexplained elements to them, and so he intentionally included aspects that intrigued reader's imagination without offering clarification. Examples included Tom Bombadil and the Nameless Things that Gandalf encountered beneath Moria.

So I have to wonder if these Three Great Tales were meant as simply a personal exercise to make sure they fit into the framework of Middle Earth's history, or to see if the stories of The Silmarillion could hold their ground. Then perhaps the publication of these books erodes some of the sense of mystery that he established in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

In the end, this slight guilt will not stop me from reading them.

Each story that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote seems to belong to a different genre, while fitting within the framework of fantasy. The Hobbit is a fable, The Lord of the Rings is an epic, Beren and Luthien is a romance, and The Children of Hurin is a tragedy. I don't know what The Fall of Gondolin is. Sounds like another tragedy.

The story is mainly about the misadvantures of a human warrior named Turin, who is trying to escape an ancestral curse set upon his father Hurin by the evil Dark Lord Morgoth. He moves between settlements of Elf and Man, invariably and inadvertantly leaving a trail of blood wherever he goes.

That being said, in this closer inspection of the story, Turin comes across as a bit less of a screwup than he did in the detached perspective of The Silmarillion. At first I thought his reaction to being antagonized and eventually accosted by the racist Elf Saeros was baffling. I still don't think I would react in the same way. It's not an instinct of mine to, after winning a fight, strip my opponent naked and chase him through the woods, pricking him with a sword. But if you look at it from a more strategic perspective, Saeros made an attempt on Turin's life. He's a personal friend and advisor to the king, so he has a lot of protection should a complaint be made against him. The only way to dissuade Saeros from continuing his assassination attempts is to put fear into him, and using shame seems like a strategic alternative if you don't want to use violence.

Turin falling in with the Gaurwaith is also more sympathetic. Despite their cruel nature, if you're surviving in the woods on your own, it's sympathetic that one might take the opportunity to join with the only company available, even if you aren't morally aligned.

Mim the so-called Petty Dwarf is in this book. I had a lot to say about him in my review of The Silmarillion. His poor treatment and the way his wrongdoers were represented was one of my biggest criticisms. I wondered if I would feel differently with a more in-depth look at his circumstances.

I don't. He and his sons are unjustly robbed, and one of them is mortally shot in the process. He is told to give up the secret location of his lodgings in exchange for his life, which the Gaurwaith turn into their base of operations. The text actually refuses to specify on whether or not Mim intentionally found an Orc host to ambush the occupying group or if he was accosted and intimidated into it. Either way, my sympathies remain with the Petty Dwarf.

The Silmarillion has Mim reappear later, just to be slain by Hurin. Here, this part out is left, which I'm okay with.

In The Silmarillion, I was really taken aback by all the name changes that the protagonist goes through. He starts off as Turin, but after leaving Doriath, believing that he would be held guilty for the death of Saeros, and taking company with the Gaurwaith, he chooses to go by the name "Neithan the Wronged". Once he develops a reputation for himself and recruits more soldiers to his cause, people begin to call him "Gorthol the Dread Helm" after the ancestral piece of armor he inherited from his father. Then, after the Gaurwaith are slaughtered, he is guided to Nargothrond and introduces himself as "Agarwaen, Son of Umarth", meaning "Blood-stained son of ill fate". However, he manages to impress the locals with his martial capacity and they name him "Mormegil the Black Sword" after his signature blade, Gurthang. But then swayed by his good character, he comes to be known as "Adanedhel the Elf-man". Then a love interest chooses to name him "Thurin the Secret", pointedly similar to his original name. But Nargothrond inadvertently collapses due to his actions and he finds himself in need of finding yet another place to defend. He does, in a settlement of Men called Brethil and introduces himself as "Turambar, Master of Doom", which kind of sticks to the end of the story.

He also has the nickname "Dragon Helm" in the Dorieth, tries to introduce himself as "Wildman" on first meeting the Men of Brethil, and has the title "Dagnir Glaurunga" on his grave at the end of the story.

His sister Nienor also changes name to Niniel after a spell of amnesia.

Even Mim's stronghold goes from being called Bar-en-Nibin-noeg, to Bar-en-Danwedh, the House of Ransom. And a house doesn't even need a name. The hill that the hideout is situated on turns from the historical name the Petty Dwarves gave it, Sharbhund, to the more modern Amon Rudh, the Bald Hill, to Echad i Sedryn, Camp of the Faithful. J.R.R. was addicted to naming things.

Reading The Silmarillion, all these name changes felt pretty random, especially with the rapid-shot nature of its detached style. At least for Turin, in this more detailed exploration it does get mentioned that he is running away from his family curse. Believing it to be in his father's name, he tries his best to get away from it.

During The Silmarillion, when Turambar and Niniel enter a romantic relationship, I had an eerie sensation. I had to do some backtracking to confirm that, yes indeed, this was an incestuous twist. With all the renaming and memory loss it's hard to keep track, and it kind of makes the reveal lose its punch.

Turin kills a lot of people. He kills Saeros by accidentally running him off a cliff when he just meant to humiliate him. He kills a member of the Gaurwaith before joining, throwing a rock in his direction when an arrow was shot at him prematurely. He kills the leader of this band, Forweg, when he catches him chasing a woman through the woods. He gets the entirety of the company killed by stationing them with the unwilling Mim who has them accosted by Orcs. He kills his friend Beleg, mistaking him for an Orc after regaining consciousness during his rescue. He inadvertantly has most of Nargothrond killed by encouraging them to take a more assertive stance in war and has a bridge built. He comes back to his hometown, kills the evil lord Brodda, which then gets his aunt Aerin, his old friend Sador, and the rest of his people living under that rule killed. Then he finally kills Brandir, his rival in love, for slandering him. I know he's cursed but the amount of bloodshed is almost aggregious. 

Tolkien still enjoys going into unnecessary details at times. For example, when Beleg takes up Gurthang, and the author explicity says its origins are not important to this story. But then continues to explain them anyway. He can also be a little repetitive. In my review of The Lord of the Rings, I mentioned being surprised in that The Two Towers and The Return of the King are a little repetitive. Both have the good guys facing an overwhelming force, only to be saved at the last second by an unlikely ally, and both of them have a deluded king that is brought to their senses by a Hobbit.

He repeats the trope of a woman of more powerful bloodline marrying a lesser man. He did this with Thingol and Melian, Beren and Luthien, and Aragorn and Arwen.

In The Children of Hurin, in Nargothrond, Finduilas falls in love with Turin (then known as Agarwaen), to the bitterness of Gwindor. Then in Brethil, Niniel falls in love with Turin (now known as Turambar) to the bitterness of Brandir. His presence in both these locations lead to their assault by the dragon Glaurung.

Overall, it's a pretty bleak story, and there doesn't seem to be much of a takeaway. Morgoth wants to torment the great hero Hurin, so he sets a curse on his family. The book follows the slow actualization of the curse, giving moments of hope and periods of reprieve before misfortune catches up again. In the end, both of Hurin's children die in states of grief and shame. The final pages are of their parents reuniting and being depressed about it. The only sense of enduring accomplishment is that Turin does manage to slay the dragon Glaurung. I guess for the threat of Morgoth to feel real, he needs to get a few wins.

The Weather Detective (book review)

Back in January I wrote a glowing review of The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. I'd read it when Lee-Anne was going in for surgery for an intracranial observation of her epilepsy. I was stressed out and wanted something to distract myself with. A book about tree trivia seemed to be just about what I was looking for.

I had recently read Staring at the Sun, a book about mortality, and Bittersweet, which covered the merits of sadness. I'd been soul searching but didn't have the mental capacity for it at this point in my life. So I was surprised when the tree trivia book beat out the other two in terms of spiritual fulfillment.

Earlier this year, Lee-Anne went in for her first set of two surgeries to potentially cure her epilepsy. So it felt right to open up another Wohlleben book.

I had found three more at an Indigo, The Heartbeat of Tree, The Power of Trees, and The Weather Detective. I chose the latter, as it seemed the most different from the one I'd read.

Having finished it, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I learned lots of really cool trivia that I have since shared with others, clearing up misconceptions that I didn't know that I had. For example, I had never really thought about why clouds appear black before they're about to storm. In retrospect, it makes sense that the water they are made of does not literally change hue. The raindrops do not have the appearance of oil as they hit the Earth. But I guess I was told as a child that clouds darken before a storm and never thought to question it as an adult.

Turns out, they're just tall. As water build up, it gets more difficult for sunlight to work its way through, so the clouds begin to look black. As they get larger, the top layer eventually gets to a cold enough part of the atmosphere that it begins to freeze. This causes the vapour to harden and become too heavy to float, so it falls in the form of hail, usually melting on the way and dragging down the bottom layers with it.

This is also why you sometimes get hail but not snow in harsh but otherwise temperate storms. They're just coming down fast enough that they didn't have a chance to thaw. I learned that water droplets will bob up and down in the atmosphere as they harden. If you store a piece of hail in a freezer and cut it open later, you will find a series of rings. By counting them, you can figure out how many trips it took between the top few cloud layers before falling. This is a similar method to figuring out how old a tree was by looking at the interior circles of its stump.

I also learned that heat rises in pillars, and certain birds follow them to get the benefit of lift. By doing this, they can stay airborne without needing to expend energy by flapping. This brought me back to a time about ten years previous, when I was working my first year at the Summer Program. I was watching some turkey vultures and noticed that, no matter how long I observed them, they never seemed to flap.

My manager at the time noticed what I was doing and asked what I was thinking. When I told him, he joked that I was part of the "Birds Aren't Real" movement, an (I think) satyrical belief that birds have been replaced with government drone.

That isn't what I thought, I was just curious how they could fly without flapping. Now, ten years later I have the answer, thanks to The Weather Detective.

I have felt compelled to repeat these facts to friends and family in my personal life. So it's not like this book is less rich in information than Hidden Life of Trees. It elicits the same feeling of excitement of discovery, and I'm happy to have read it, but still... the reading experience was just less enjoyable.

In my first experience of his work, Wohlleben really shined by speaking compassionately and emotively from the perspective of trees. You just can't convincingly do that with weather. While awesome in its own regard, clouds and wind are just more mechanical in nature.

The premise of The Weather Detective is to encourage people to learn how to predict weather without needing to look at media forecasts. In this way, we humans can awaken many of our senses that we have learned to neglect. While this is a neat endeavor, he seems to lose focus partway through the book and just start talking about whatever he feels like, such as the ethics of birdfeeders.

I know that this isn't wholly separate from the weather, but if that counts, then everything in his previous book would fit under that lofty definition.

I also think he's just more of a tree guy. There are a few points where plantlife comes up, and I just wanted to scream "Yes! Keep talking about that! It's what you're good at!"

Even when it comes to animals, he doesn't speak as empathetically as he does with trees. In Hidden Life, he does cover the necessity of competition in nature, and "the contract with life" that we all need to make, understanding that our continued existence comes at the expense of others. However, he also talked about the way trees work together to form a canopy, lend nutrients to their neighbours even if they're rivals, support their weaker peers, and collaborate with each other to make long-term decisions that can span centuries. They show sentimentality, provide mentorship, and support the world at large. By the time I was finished that book, I was filled with awe and had an urge to go forest bathing.

But in The Weather Detective, the way he talks about animals fills me with existential dread. Some of the phrasing sounds creepily close to eugenics, and by the end of the book I'm pondering the ethics of being able to feed myself.

If asked in isolation if I'd recommend The Weather Detective, the answer would be an enthusiastic "Yes!" The book is full of enlightening information that you will take with you. But if you're reading it as a follow up to The Hidden Life of Trees, then I would still give my approval but caution you that the experience might be less enjoyable.

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (video game review)

Super Mario RPG was one of my first and favourite video games growing up. It is unique in that, despite using the colourful world of the Mushroom Kingdom invented by Nintendo, it was developed by the Final Fantasy writing team. It therefore feels like a family-friendly installment of a series that usually tackles post-apocalyptic themes.

The game starts with Mario on a routine mission to save Princess Toadstool, in later games known as Peach. Things go awry when a giant sword falls through the sky, skewering Bowser's Keep and sending the relevant characters in different directions. We later learn that this was the work of a villain named Smithy, who shattered a place called Star Road on the way. Unless the damage is repaired, the wishes made by the citizens of Mushroom Kingdom cannot be granted. Mario takes it on himself to collect the seven missing pieces of Star Road and confront the evil Smithy.

My mom credits Super Mario RPG as highly influential in my learning to read. I'd been struggling at school, but the text-heavy game required me to improve if I wanted to play. With that motivation, I rose to the occasion and my grades got better as a happy side effect. 

I don't quite know what made the game so enthralling. I liked getting context on how the Mushroom Kingdom would function if the nonsensical Mario side-scrollers were literally true. Of course, Mario has a sort of celebrity status, which would be inevitable after saving the princess so many times. The sense of danger from the kidnappings have lost their novelty, with even the perpetrator Bowser coming across as going through the motions of a tradition rather than attempting anything actually sinister.

As I've said in my Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion reviews, I've never liked the trope of an "all evil" race. Unexpectedly, Super Mario RPG subverts this. While having the usual enemies, we also see them interact with Bowser as members of the Koopa Troop, and we get to visit Monstrotown, a civilization of friendly monsters. One of Mallows spells even reveals the inner thought of enemies, which are usually lighthearted.

I liked the teamup of Mario and Bowser for the sake of a greater good, and I liked Princess Toadstool becoming an active member of the team instead of just being a source of motivation. I also liked the two characters exclusive to the game, Geno and Mallow.

Apparently the first Paper Mario game was supposed to be a direct sequel to The Legend of the Seven Stars, but the Final Fantasy team took issue with them making a direct continuation of their work. So instead, the newer series became more of a spiritual successor. While good in their own right, none of them quite captured the feeling. 

Whatever conditions brought the two creative teams together never repeated, leaving only one installment of the would-be Super Mario RPG series. Occasionally, Nintendo would make references or allusions, such as having trophies in Super Smash Bros of Geno and Mallow, but that's as far as they would go. A sequel was completely out of the question.

Until recently! Kind-of sort-of. A remake was made for the Switch, which is the closest thing by far that we've ever gotten to a coninuation. This allowed me to revisit the game as an adult to see if it still held up.

I appreciated that they didn't go crazy with making changes. It looks like a cleaner version of the original, even maintaining the slightly wonky proportions.

I was really interested in how I would take Mallow, my favourite character of the original. He's a cloud person that was adopted and raised by the Frog Sage (previously known as "Frogfucious") and therefore believes himself to be a tadpole. He has a tendency to cry, which causes rainstorms as a side effect of him being a cloud.

Audiences are often uncharitable to characters prone to tears, or who grapple with fear. As a child I found him relatable, and I wondered if that would be different in this stage of life. But I still liked him quite a lot.

I'm a little surprised I wasn't as much of a fan of Geno, the sentient puppet possessed by a star. He had a design similar to other characters that I really liked at the time, like Snufkin from Moomintroll.

The remake added an autosave feature. Interestingly, they didn't get rid of the save boxes. I think that was wise, since outside of their function, they contributed to the atmosphere of the game.

Each team combination gets a unique attack that you can use after filling a gauge that increases throughout fights.

A lot of names changed. As mentioned previously, "Frogfucious" became "Frog Sage". A little boring but I guess they wanted to get away from referencing the religious figure Confucious. Annoyingly, Princess Toadstool became Peach, which I've never been a fan of. Yardovich became Speardovich, which is just a more accurate translation. Mack the Knife became Claymorton.

There is post-game content, which I haven't bothered with much. Mostly rematches against bosses. I tried my hand against Bellome, Jinx, and Booster and I think I beat a couple of them. It's kind of dry. They introduce this stuff in a bit of an annoying way too. Instead of exploring the world post-Smithy, they revert time to before the final saga, but with the endgame content available. I find it more satisfying to do that kind of thing in an environment where your accomplishment is acknowledged. The way they did it feels like your hard work went to nothing. Granted, it would be difficult to write a continuation of the story after Geno returns to Star Road and Mario's rivalry with Bowser is reestablished.

Overall, it was mostly just polishing up graphics and modernizing the gameplay a bit. I found the remake just as enjoyable as the original, and I liked it about as much as an adult as I did as a kid. Still one of my all time favourites, and even if the Final Fantasy team doesn't want to partner with Nintendo, they should consider trying their hand at more family-friendly games again, because they have a surprising talent for it.

The Silmarillion (Book Review)

 Among Lord of the Rings nerds, there are several levels of intensity.

1. At the lowest, you have those that have only watched the movies.
2. Next you have people that have both watched the movies and read the books.
3. Then it's people that have read the books and The Hobbit.
4. Then people that have read The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion
5. Then people that have read The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and all the additional works ie. Beren and Luthien, Unfinished Tales etc

For most of my life I've been a Level 3, but I've recently upgraded to 4. Sometimes I get criticized for being a hater due to my criticism of how Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs are portrayed. But I would argue that no genuine hater could become a Level 4.

The Silmarillion is a work by J.R.R. Tolkien that wasn't published while he was alive. It's a history of the universe he created, and mostly I think, used as a reference to help him stay consistent when writing The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Because of this, it feels a little rougher and there are times that I had to remind myself that it wasn't made for public consumption.

It eventually got published by his son, Christopher Tolkien, who edited and stitched together the notes of his father into something similar to a cohesive story.

While the title of the book is The Silmarillion, that is only the largest of a set of stories, the others being Ainulindale, Valaquenta, Akallabeth, and Of The Rings of Power And the Third Age.

A lot of these words have accents that my Canadian keyboard doesn't grant easy access to. I'm not going to learn how to make them, so this review is going to contain a lot of misspellings. There are an overwhelming and unnecessary number of names throughout the story. Not only does everything have a unique translation between the tongues of Elves and Men, but sometimes there will be words for additional races, or factions, or they change based on chronology.

J.R.R. Tolkien had two loves. One was folklore and the other was linguistics. His work was meant to bring these together, and to provide his country of England with the myth and fairytale he felt it lacked. I would say he did this successfully considering how most of modern-day fantasy set in the past is some variation of his work, and Elvish is a fully functional language. Still, sometimes it feels like he goes a little crazy with the unnecessary details.

The book starts off with the tale of Illuvatar, essentially the Christian conception of God, and the Valar, basically angels, whose actions take the form of climate change. It switches focus to be about the Elves, who are "the first children of Iluvatar", immortal beings tied to a human-like form. Eventually we get Men, similar in likeness to Elves but "gifted" with the fate of death. 

Inside this we have the Mayar, which are basically lesser Valar and the race to which the Wizards belong. They are immortal with the ability to cast spells, but they are more corporeal and can't change the climate in such grand ways. We also have the Dwarves and Orcs.

Since it begins with the eldest and most conceptual race, then moves to describe younger, more physical ones, and eventually those with finite lifespans, this book's pace slows down steadily throughout.

The first story, Ainulindale, is pretty much the Biblical Old Testiment. Iluvatar creates the Valar. Together, they create Arda, which is the world. The mightiest of the Valar, known as Melkor, becomes envious of Iluvatar and tries to become as powerful as Him. This creates a terrific rift that shapes everything.

The land of Aman is created to house the Valar and Mayar, sort of a proxy to Heaven, and Middle Earth is left to Melkor. Eventually it is learned that Elves and Men would be introduced to Middle Earth, and they decide to give the Elves the opportunity to live in Aman, safe from the dark lord's machinations.

One kind of weird element of the story is that the Elves are called the Quendi, the first children of Iluvatar, and Men (humans are referred to as such) are the second, known as  the Edain. This is because only two races that use language should ever walk Middle Earth.

It feels like there's a lot more than that though. Usually there's some loophole, but some feel inexcusable.

The Valar and Mayar are excepted because they are supposed to belong to a separate branch of life entirely, not being native to Middle Earth, and originating before Elves and Men.

The Orcs, despite technically being the second race to use language, don't count as they were created by Melkor. Since only Iluvatar can create life he resorted to twisting the bodies and minds of Elves into a mockery of their original form, afterwards known as the Orc race.

The Dwarves were crafted by Aule the Valar in anticipation of Elves and Men, but he could not grant them life. Iluvatar liked them, so he completed them under the condition that they don't count as being in the same category as the first or second children.

This covers the "humanoid" races that came before Men, but if the credential really is using language, then we also have:

The Ents, ancient trees that Yavanna granted sentience and mobility in response to Aule creating the Dwarves, so they might protect the forests from their greed. I suppose Iluvatar gave them the Dwarf treatment, but it isn't specified.

Ungoliant, who is the manifestation of Melkor's darkness, takes the form of a giant Spider and has the ability to speak. Her power is Unlight, and I must wonder, if Unlight is the opposite of Light, then wouldn't Goliant be the opposite of Ungolliant? But we never figure out what Goliant is, or why she's the opposite of it.

She has a bunch of kids, including Shelob, who we meet in Lord of the Rings. Since Melkor was able to manifest a creature capable of speach and reproduction, does this not violate the rule of him being unable to create life?

These are the talking races to appear before Men. There weren't supposed to be any after, but we still have:

Hobbits, obviously very influential in the main works. Supposedly they are an offshoot of Men and don't count as a distinct race.

There are Trolls, but they are made in mockery of Ents the same way Orcs are of Elves.

Then there are talking Wolves, Dragons, Bats, Eagles, and Dogs.

I've got a theory about the Wolves and Bats actually.

Throughout the main works, we see modern incarnations of all the races except for the Bats, referred to as Vampires. Intelligent wolves are known as Wargs, but in The Silmarillion they are called Werewolves. They are described as intelligent souls attached to the bodies of wolves. Therefore, I think that Werewolves are the original experiments, made from life that Melkor twisted, with the Wargs being their offspring. 

Similarly, the Vampires are likely to be bats with souls sealed inside them. It's more of a reach, but the Fell Beasts that the Ringwraiths ride may be the descendants of Vampires.

After getting the descriptions of the races, I wondered if this meant that Orcs were immortal. They certainly don't give that impression, but since they were originally Elves, it doesn't make sense for them to lose their longevity. On looking it up, it appears that Orcs of the Third Age have a lifespan slightly shorter than Men, but it's noted that some of Sauron's company had seen the ancient days. It's easy to imagine here that the original Orcs were indeed immortal, but over generations their longevity slowly decreased. Some speculate that the Goblin King in The Hobbit was one of the orginal Orcs, as he appeared to have personal memories of ancient wars.

Inherited sin is a big theme in The Silmarillion. Among the Elves, also known as the Quendi, or "First Children of Iluvatar",  were the ones willing to to follow Tulkas the Valar from Middle Earth to Aman.  These would be be called the Eldar, or the Light Elves. 

However, a faction of them split off when one of the leaders, Thingol, fell in love with a Maya named Melian and they chose to stay in Middle Earth. Because Thingol had previously seen the light of Aman and because their people were established partly by a native of that land, this faction is referred to as the Sindar, or "Grey Elves".

Those that refused to follow Tulkas all together were called the "Avari", "The Unwilling", or "Dark Elves". Among these people, the ones that were taken by Melkor were twisted into Orcs. They were considered a distinct race with no hope for rehabillitation.

So you can see there's a gradiant of nobility based on the behaviours of the initial members of these factions.  Not much room for social mobility.

But it doesn't end there. Even among the Eldar, they are divided into three categories based on how quickly they made it to Aman. 

The first group would be known as the Vanyar, closest to Manwe, the Valar representing the sky, second in strength only to Melkor. 

The next group to make it would be the Noldor, closest to Aule, father of Dwarves and closest to earth. 

Then the third was the Teliri, who loved the sea and were closest to Ulmo who maintained a love for Middle Earth and shared his time between. They came within the borders of Aman, but came last and stayed on an island just off its shores. They are also the people who had a faction splinter off on their initial journey to become Grey Elves.

The whole basis of this hierarchy reeks of "The sins of the father are the sins of the son" and is a continuation of much of my complaints of The Lord of the Rings.

That being said, the Elves are much more likeable in this book. Because they are being compared with incorporeal beings, and magical people older than them. Even being compared with one another instead of with mortals makes them much more "human".

The premise of the main portion of The Silmarillion is that one of the Noldor Elves, Feanor, crafts three jewels, called the Silmarils. After Melkor destroys the light of Aman, the Valar appeal to Feanor to sacrifice his treasure to heal their land. He refuses, only to have them stolen by the same guy that caused darkness to wash over the land in the first place.

Enraged, Feanor declares war chiefly on Melkor (who he now renames Morgoth) in an effort to reclaim the Silmarils, but secondarily on all the Valar for sharing lineage with the dark lord of Middle Earth. This leads to his people committing the crime of kinslaying, and falling under a doom (curse, or dark prophecy).

In the Lord of the Rings, I only remember the Elves being treated as entities above the reproach of mortals, even when they behaved in ways I felt were insufferable. Seeing them succumb to greed and wrath, causing them to engage in scandals that have consequences makes them feel more grounded.

One of the issues of having much of this drama occur on Aman, an allegory for heaven, is that nothing is supposed to ever die there. So Ungoliant killing the trees of the sun and moon, and the Noldor killing the Teliri for their ships feels awkward. We're told that Elves, after being killed get reincarnated back in Aman, but at a time they cannot control. It still lessens the severity of the kinslaying a bit.

J.R.R. Tolkien definitely has a thing for dominant women. He has Thingol, the original Grey Elf, marry Melian, a Maya. Then his daughter Luthien marries a mortal Man named Beren. 

I understand the difference in consequence between these two relationship dynamics. In the first generation there is a power imbalance, and the sacrifice is that the Teliri don't get to see Aman. For the second generation, Melian has to relinquish her immortality, which for the Elves is tantamount to a death sentence. Still, I wish it were acknowledged by Thingol that his daughter, like he, wished to enter a mixed relationship, even as he renounced it.

In The Lord of the Rings, we see this dynamic again with Aragorn, a human Man, and Arwen, a half-Elf that becomes mortal for love. I can't think of an instance where the male gives up status for the female.

Finrod Felagund is the coolest Elf by far. He's the only one to visit the halls of the Dwarves, and leans heavily on their aid in crafting the city of Nargothrond. Originally just named Finrod, the Dwarves gifted him with the title "Felagund", and their great necklace Nauglamir, both of which he wore proudly even among his Elven peers.

Despite Dwarves being the race known for their craftsmanship, I think this is the only example of a named item not made by Elves. The Silmarils, all the Rings of Power, and all the named blades are Elvish.

Finrod Felagund was also the first to encounter Men. He was brought to tears by their beauty, approached them, and sang them songs about the world. Other Elves were not so welcoming, worried about being "replaced by an inferior race".

Eventually, he finds himself caught between two contrasting oaths, one for the Elves, and one of Men. He decides that his obligation to Men is greater, and accompanies Beren on his quest to retrieve the Silmarils from Morgoth.

He meets his doom after being imprisoned on this journey. Breaking the chains binding him, he wrestles a Werewolf to death, becoming mortally wounded in the process but allowing Beren to continue his journey.  A very strong final showing for the least xenophobic Elf ever.

Although we shouldn't reserve xenophobia as a purely Elvish trait. I want to talk a little bit about the story of Mim. He's a minor character within the saga of Turin, but I felt the way that he was represented was pretty strange.  When Turin and his crew come upon three small Dwarves, they capture one and shoot arrows at the other two. In exchange for his life, the captured Dwarf Mim offers to bring his captors to his home.

When they reach their destination, his two fleeing companions, now revealed to be his sons, have also returned. One of them has been mortally wounded by an arrow. Touched, Turin offers his services to what remains of the little Dwarf family.

The way I described it sounds like it should evoke sympathy for Mim, right? But the book speaks offhandedly of his capture, the fact it was unprovoked, done with intent of thievery, and that his son is murdered. Mim expressly offers passage to his home under fear of death, presumably thinking that he would be robbed further.

What the book does emphasize is how gracious Turin is for apologizing and offering his services. That he reminds Mim of the nobility of ancient Dwarf Lords and wins his favour. But what does he actually give? It sounds like his company freeloads off the Dwarves, living in their quarters, using it as a home base and essentially holding them hostage.

Mim winds up leading a gang of Orcs back to his halls who slaughter most of the company. After the dust settles, he tries to finish off a wounded Elf that was part of the group, although he's unsuccessful. His actions do not depict someone filled with gratitude.

Later, Turin's father Hurin returns to rob the little Dwarf. He reveals that he knows of what had transpired. Despite Turin surviving the encounter, he kills Mim as revenge, almost as an afterthought.

I just can't get behind the behaviour of the Men, treated by the book as anti-heroes. This is likely due to their noble heritage and our knowledge of the tragedies they've suffered. But I think the so-called "Petty Dwarves", depiction as weak, ungrateful and dishonest was disrespectful on behalf of the book to say the least. By far the greater share of guilt should be given to Turin and Hurin, who behaved as nothing better than thieves and murderers.

I don't want to give the impression that I will always side with Dwarf over Elf, though. In The Lord of the Rings, it's well-known that the tension between Legolas and Gimle is based on some ancient, ancestral grievance. In The Silmarillion, we learn of its origins.

After a Silmaril comes into Thingol's possession, he hires a host of Dwarves to attach it to the Nauglamir. After completion, the smiths claim it for themselves, arguing that the necklace was originally Dwarven. Rightly, Thingol protests that The Silmaril belongs to the Elves and that they had not made this claim before taking the job. Impulsively, the Dwarves slay the Grey Elf and claim the treasure for their own.

So while I generally favour Dwarves, in this case the ancestral feud is pretty much solely their fault.

Some context may be lost due to the detached writing style of The Silmarillion. The degree to which this is true struck me when it finally got to the part that covered all of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Despite being four massive books in their own right, in this book's historical voice, all of its content only counts for four of its 366 pages. By comparison, Beren and Luthien's adventure was worth 34. Sauron the wicked Maya and his Rings of Power are small potatoes compared with Morgoth the Valar and the Silmarils. 

I was sad to see that, despite Frodo assuring Sam that history would hold him in just as important standing as he, in The Silmarillion, he is only briefly mentioned as a servant and not named.