The Emperor's Children

	I can't say I don't recommend it. Just be prepared to take some time with it.

Messud's writing style is dizzyingly parenthetic. I lost count of the sentences I had to read over two or three times before I could disentangle the syntax. It's like a photocopy of exact thought at times: It may have made perfect sense to her, but not everyone can follow along. I accepted it early on as a stylistic quirk, but often it seemed gratuitous, a mishmash of clauses that could have existed happily as separate sentences, whose unholy union only complicated and obfuscated rather than providing any deeper meaning.

She uses several turns of phrase that just don't parse for me. And I think she hit the thesaurus a few too many times. I am not an unintelligent reader, and I have my own fondness for good words, but what's the point when it obscures rather than reveals meaning? It's inexcusable, especially considering her consistent misuse of the very simple word "comprise" throughout. Sometimes it's not so much the fault of the writer as it is her editor.

That said, the novel is engaging. Each chapter is written from the perspective of a one of the principle characters, yet the voice is a consistent coherent narrator. The variety keeps the story from getting too dull.

The one thing that binds all of them to each other is their tremendous self-indulgence. (I'm sure her own self-indulgent writing style was not nearly as intentional.) I recognized people I dislike in these characters. And isn't it always the case — I recognized qualities I dislike about myself in them. It kept me from liking them too much to remain objective, yet it made them familiar enough to keep me paying attention.

What drew me to this book was my curiosity about the new spate of novels and short stories that have come out in recent years in which 9/11 plays a significant part. It annoyed me at first that anyone would reduce that day and its aftermath to a plot point — even if it was done well. Six years on, it can still be a ballsy proposition. But like all such events, it is a plot point. It is our history, our story, our plot. I admire the way Messud uses it at the end as a means of releasing &$8212; shattering — the characters out of their illusions, while still capturing the horror, panic and disbelief of those days. I think it had a similar effect on all of us, however short- or long-lasting it may have been.

Is this what Michael Tolliver calls living?

Armistead Maupin may be indispensable for gay men of a certain generation, but he is not a good writer. There. I said it. May I burn forever in the fiery pits of hell.

What made him famous — no, what made him essential was his ability to encapsulate a city and a decade and a moment in gay history, American history, within the pages of his original novels.

Michael Tolliver Lives rides on the coattails of an important literary achievement. But it need not have been written. It reads like an extended epilogue, neatly placing all the characters in their uninteresting fates, betraying the imagination of readers the world over who thought they knew what happened to the inhabitants of 28 Barbary Lane. It's like one more season of Absolutely Fabulous that gets yet farther away from the characters and the audience and, while it may get the auteur some brief attention and a bit of money, ultimately does a disservice to the original phenomenon of the work that inspired the most recent re-visitation in the first place.

To start with, there's not much of a plot. It is one of the fastest reads of my life, and the book is kind of boring because, really, nothing happens. Upon turning the last page, I thought: Is that it? The title Michael Tolliver Lives says more than the whole collected 277 pages. If Maupin is trying to make a statement about life — full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? — no thank you. I will just live my own and leave Michael Tolliver's alone.

The Tales of the City series was at least notable its convoluted plots and excellent character studies. And part of their charm was Maupin's insistence on placing them in time with very specific cultural references. This time around, however, it is clear that it is he, and not his characters, who are behind the times. There is too much laborious explanation of things that are already quite clear. His dialogue is wooden. Night Listener was a marvelous little novel. This one fell far short of the mark. Maupin would have done better to have left the inhabitants of 28 Barbary Lane back in the late '80s, where they were relevant and interesting and significant. These days, unfortunately, Michael "Mouse" Tolliver is nothing more than a slightly bitter, self-indulgent, over-sentimental, unfunny, but loquacious shadow of himself.

But at least we know he lives.

More Than Broomsticks and Skeletons in Hogwarts Closets

J.K. Rowling outed Albus Dumbledore on Friday. From the BBC:

She made her revelation to a packed house in New York's Carnegie Hall on Friday, as part of her U.S. book tour.

She took audience questions and was asked if Dumbledore found "true love."

"Dumbledore is gay," she said, adding he was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, who he beat in a battle between good and bad wizards long ago.

...

Rowling told the audience that while working on the planned sixth Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, she saw the script carried a reference to a girl who was once of interest to Dumbledore.

She said she ensured director David Yates was made aware of the truth about her character.

There is a lively and thorough discussion going on at AfterElton.com. One of the major criticisms of the revelation is that it's too late, and she should have been more forthcoming in the novels. I agree that her not revealing this fact before the publication of the final volume may smack of a cynical fear that sales might have been adversely affected. Religious zealots had enough to complain about with witchcraft (even though the characters clearly celebrate Christian holidays throughout the series), let alone the Gay Agenda. A scandal might have actually increased sales. Who can say? But clearly she was playing this carefully.

For a while I wondered (hoped?) if Harry might be gay. But it was soon put to rest. There certainly seemed to be some gay fodder with Remus Lupin, a character whose status as a werewolf inspired such discrimination against him, I thought for sure Rowling was making a statement about intolerance of homosexuality. But then she threw me for a loop when Lupin married and fathered a child with Tonks, a witch who surely could have been a lesbian. Lends credence to that common pitfall of American gaydar: Is he gay or just British? But I gave up on the notion that there might be obvious gay characters in the series.

Ultimately, though, I think the news about Dumbledore is good. If it's true that she sent a note to the Half-Blood Prince director to ... er, straighten out the script, it shows some integrity on her part. Makes me wonder what else just didn't make it into the books. There is an opportunity in the two final films to make more of his relationship with Grindelwald, if even only visually and subtly. Let's hope that Dumbledore's official outing encourages the filmmakers to not ignore the subject and to treat it with some dignity.

Bridge to Paradoxia

Some time ago, I heard that there was a new film adaptation of Bridge to Terabithia being made, but I didn't pay much attention. I remembered the book ... mostly. Jeff got me to read it once. I read so few kids' books as a kid, opting instead for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and other Douglas Adams treats and (nerd alert! nerd alert!) Choose Your Own Adventure. I think he thinks I missed out on something vital. So, as an adult, I've read several Newbery Award winners and liked it. He made me a Little House on the Prairie lover (but he won't read Harry Potter!). Ah, such is life.

I was alarmed to see Walden Media, producer of the Narnia movie(s), and Disney named in the full-page, full-color Bridge to Terabithia ad in last week's Arts & Leisure section. I thought it would be a special effects-ridden disaster — like maybe it would literalize Terabithia and trap the poor children playing the two main characters in an emotionless, Lucasian, green-screen hell. The ad featured a giant troll, insect-like soldiers, fantastical humanoids I presumed to be Terabithians, a castle on a hilltop, somone riding an ostrich, and an overgrown beaver with a colander on its head — which I was sure would talk! And the way the children were rendered, it looked like the whole thing was CGI.

But I knew Jeff and I would have to see it anyway.

I am pleased to report that there are no talking beavers. Jess and Leslie are played by real humans. Special effects, at worst mildly intrusive, were kept to a minimum, and the emotional value of the story rings true and clear. There is a central plot turn toward the end that made several people in the audience gasp audibly, but we, knowing how it ended, were getting weepy long before anything bad happened. So, I guess the film succeeds on that front.

The movie, as well as the book, is about being a free thinker, having your head in the clouds while keeping your feet planted on hard ground. It's about making your environment rather than simply reacting to it. It's about seeing the world around you in a new way, imagining something bigger and more real in many ways.

So, upon leaving the theater, I couldn't help but think: Doesn't the very act of making this movie, "revealing" a Terabithia to us that may not be anything like ours, fly in the face of the whole point of the book?