Chris Crutcher, Harper Tempest, 2003

The voice of a teen misfit, with an exquisite and mature sense of self-awareness, tells this tale of high-school angst, child abuse, religious fanaticism, adolescent romance, hypocracy, disappointment, and violence. While the overall story is just a little bit too much, it’s a good read, and has a few scenes sure to warm the hearts of those of us who were outcasts and nonconformists in high school.

William Shakespeare, circa 1595, read as an eBook from BlackMask.com

All I remember from Western Civ class about King John is that he lost much of England’s holdings on the continent, thereby gaining the moniker “Lackland,” and that he was forced by his nobles to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede. In Shakespeare’s history, this latter event is not even mentioned. The play is much more concerned with the succession, and the murder of his nephew Arthur.

As a story, it seems rushed (even for a play). John’s faults are portrayed through a flurry of failed diplomatic maneuvers and battles in France. His excommunication, and murder of Arthur seem more an inevitable consequence of his other failings than crimes in and of themselves. His ignoble death, too, has the air of inevitability about it

Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Penguin Books, translated by Lucia Graves, 2004.

This is a good thriller set in Barcelona, and touching on love, idealism, power, and books.

The story starts out feeling like a literary mystery, perhaps with a touch of magical realism ala Borges’ Library. However, it rather quickly becomes a mystery involving an author, a boy who gradually falls deep into a story that involves him and his friends in a recapitulation of history.

J. K. Rowling, 2005, Scholastic Press

Christ, I read this back in July, and am only writing about it now.

I’m hoping that JK knows what she’s doing. It seems like Order of the Phoenix was an awfully long book for what it did to advance the plot arc. After reading Half-Blood Prince, it almost feels like Order should have had half the material of Half-Blood, so that the next book won’t be rushed.

So with no further ado, here’re my SPOILER FILLED predictions for the next one:

• McGonnagle is given the temporary Headmaster position at Hogwarts.
• We will learn that Regulas Black managed to gather up, and disable pretty much all but one of the outstanding horicruxes (horicruxen?).
• The remaining horicrux was being kept at the Black Residence at the time of Regulas’ murder. This horicrux is none other than the locket which Harry & co. failed to open during their time at 12 Grimmauld Place.
• Kreacher manages to get this locket into his “nest” during his artifact rescuing efforts.
• Mundungus Fletcher, during his wholesale looting of the place, gets the locket, and sells it to someone. It ends up in the hands of the Malfoys.
• Dobby finds out about this through some house-elf channel or at a SPEW meeting or something, and the news is duly reported to the Order of the Phoenix.
• Draco Malfoy can’t handle being a Death Eater, and/or the experience with Dumbledore on the Tower gives him severe doubts. Before the senior Malfoys recognize the horicrux for what is, Draco goes to Snape for help/moral support/inspiration. Snape obtains the horicrux.
• While the Order is trying to destroy/deactivate the horicrux, Death Eaters (sans Voldy) pounce on the location, and a battle ensues. Neville somehow fumbles something, causing the explosive destruction of the horicrux, and probably taking out Bellatrix Lestrange as well.
• Snape betrays the worst of the Death Eaters, and the Order of the Phoenix destroys many of them and sends a batch to Azkaban.
• Harry has his showdown with Voldy, and it’s not going well, but Ginny dives in to take the fall for Harry, and their combined love (and magical forces) defeat Voldy.
• Book ends with Snape teaching the Defense Against the Black Arts class, and Harry teaching something like Divination.

Samuel R. Delany, Vintage; 1st Vintage Books ed, originally published 1973.

Dhalgren is one of those books you hear mentioned (in hushed, reverential tones) by the more academically oriented fans of speculative Science Fiction, by people who participated in the 60s counter-cultural experience, and by students of sexual politics. It is almost always refered to as “difficult” or “challenging” by the erudite, and “a trip” by the more participatory survivors of the culture wars. Occasionally, you’ll hear it called “crap” — or worse.

In some ways, Dhalgren is a shallow metaphor for the cultural changes happening in America in the late sixties. All the old rules have changed: the City of Ballona has had some unspecified cataclysm, people in the city do whatever they want and gather in new and shifting social configurations. Race relations get redefined. The bourgoisie are frightened (while their children are seduced). Strange religions flourish, new arts emerge, senseless violence flares, and psychadelic anarchy descends. Through it all, our protagonist is never sure if he is sane, and we might be tempted to believe that the whole thing is a madman’s visions.

Additionally, there is a sense of paranoia that lurks beneath the surface. The arts and media are manipulated by one powerful individual, a man we never quite see. Many of the hallmarks of the city of Ballona (the Scorpions’ light shields, the weapons, even the semi-mystical “optical chains” worn ritually by some to commemorate some profound personal event) are found in vast storerooms, packaged like government-issued equipment. Maybe the magic of Ballona is an experiment? Timothy Leary, LSD, and MK-ULTRA anyone?

Time has blunted some of Dhalgren’s impact. Sexuality that may have been revolutionary (in print, anyway) in the early 70s doesn’t even raise eyebrows in the Internet-age. But we have to keep in mind that interracial sex was considered deviant — or even criminal — at the time the book was written, and that homosexuality and bisexuality, not to mention sadomasochism and polyamory were still shocking.