Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

This play was pretty much what I wanted and expected it to be. One of my friends worried that it would feel like fanfiction, and it did, but like a really good fanfiction. I laughed, I cried, I rolled my eyes a bit, and I mourned the near impossibility of seeing it on stage any time in the foreseeable future.

That's the extent of my spoiler free review, no promises from here on out.

I'm not sure what everyone expected from the story, the most common critique I've heard seems to be that it recycles Voldemort as the old villain. But were Rowling and her co-authors supposed to introduce, develop, and then defeat an entirely new villain in the course of four acts? Not to mention that a Harry Potter story without his nemesis in some form or fashion would seem . . . anticlimactic.

I loved the depiction of our older heroes--not unscarred by their earlier adventures, but absolutely building their lives and as happy as anyone can expect to be. Despite a bit of slash fic wariness at first, I loved Albus and Scorpius as the new heroes; they were absolutely adorable. The format of reading as a stage script instead of a novel was less unsettling than I expected, although I'm fairly certain that the stage directions were embellished for the reading public.

Yes, it fails in many respects. There's plenty of cringe-worthy moments, characters nothing is fleshed out very well because stage play, and Harry seemed even more emotionally volatile than when he was a teenager. I can't decide if this last is a result of the writers being painfully overdramatic or an attempt to portray PTSD.

I didn't love the time travel in principle because it's a cheap and messy plot trick, but I loved the exploration of the alternate histories that it allowed. There's a reason it's such a popular cheap plot trick. Specifically the scenes with Snape; I lost it a full half page before Scorpius' revelation of the existence of one Albus Severus Potter, I could just see it coming.

But on the whole I didn't feel disappointed, possibly because I had low expectations? There were many moments and quotes that I loved:

ROSE: The rumor is that he's Voldemort's son, Albus

A horrible, uncomfortable silence.

It's probably rubbish. I mean . . . look, you've got a nose.

Slightly ashamed to admit that I laughed. Suspect I have a terrible sense of humor.

And now before I hit publish, I have to mention a point that the brilliant Haley at Carrots for Michaelmas raised in her review. (I was slightly terrified to read said review because she didn't like it and I was afraid that I'd be convinced. Her literary analyses are that good, but I escaped with warm feelings intact this time.)

Huge plot flaw: Voldemort as Delphi's father. Voldemort as anyone's father. Lets skip the thinking about Voldy's sex life (ew) and think about the whole generating life thing. By Deathly Hallows, Voldemort has shredded his soul beyond recognition, been killed once, and undergone some serious physical changes. Death does not beget life; participating in the creation of a child should have been far beyond him at that point. Now obviously its Rowling's world, but it just doesn't seem to fit with the themes of death and love that run so deeply and beautifully throughout the rest of the series. 

Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place Series by Maryrose Wood

This series is entirely too much fun. I originally picked it up as a paired new YA novel with Jane Eyre as part of the awesome Sync audiobook program. It's a good initial match in plot and setting: an orphaned English girl leaves her boarding school to start her first job as governess. But from that point things veer sharply into delicious ridiculousness. Miss Penelope Lumley's charges were literally raised by wolves, but the unflappable young lady simply draws upon her veterinary skills and tames them with large doses of kindness and a pocketful of biscuits.

Anyone who grew up reading numerous stories starring intrepid English youth will be stepping into a world of nostalgia, but there's plenty to keep the story fresh and interesting. There's wordplay, literary references, random historical asides, and a zoo of colorful characters. The audiobook is a top notch performance in its own right; Katherine Kellgren perfectly matches the exuberant, over-the-top tone of the story that doesn't even attempt to take itself seriously.

I'm really looking forward to sharing this one with the kids in a few years.

Hamilton, Part 2

Well, my audiobook expired from the library before I could finish, leaving me stuck at Washington's Farewell Address for a few weeks, but here's my random thoughts so far:

• Madison and Hamilton started out as friends and allies before dissolving into political enemies. Chernow has mentioned several times that Jefferson and Madison were BFFs, I'm waiting to hear if that had anything to do with the split. Update: doesn't seem to be any particular drama around the split, just politics. Disappointed.

• I cant help being amused at the character pairs that are played by the same actors in the musical: Lafayette and Jefferson, the Frenchman and Francophile; Mulligan and Madison, the friend and ex-friend-turned-political-enemy; Laurens and Phillip, BFF and son; Peggy and Mariah Reynolds, sister-in-law and seductress (which at first is just awkward, but when you toss in the relationship with his other SIL it gets really tangled). 

• I love the way that Washington has become our King Arthur. Several years ago I read Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker series. The setting of Colonial America was so immersive and OSC laid the patriotic nostalgia on so thick when building his fantasy world that I didn't quite realize how far into alt history the story was going. Halfway through the book a character brags about seeing "the sword that cut off George Washington's head", and it was such a powerful drop-kick into the uncanny valley that it's stuck with me for years. 

Lin-Manuel Miranda guided me back from that valley with the line from Yorktown: "I see George Washington smile". The mere invocation of the name was such a powerful statement; if George Washington is smiling, all is good with the world. I've been thinking that modern America's mythology is all tied up in comic book heroes, but there's apparently still plenty of room for our historical figures as well.

• Now that we're neck-deep in election season, I've had the lyrics from "The Election of 1800" stuck in my head all day:

Jefferson or Burr? We know it's lose-lose
Jefferson or Burr? But if you had to choose 

And I'm grimly amused to discover that voters have been bellyaching about presidential candidates since pretty much the birth of the country (1800 is the fourth presidential election?). It doesn't make me feel any better about the current candidates, but the perspective helps a bit.

• Cabinet Battle #2 really bothered me, because Jefferson made it sound like America in general and Hamilton specifically were tossing their French friends under the bus by refusing to send aid in their war against Britain. I assumed there were details that made it more understandable, and this was the case. Turns out the post-Revolution government that was asking for aid had by that point imprisoned, executed or exiled most of the French officers and aristocrats who had helped in the American Revolution (not to mention beheaded the king who agreed to the support in the first place). I'd also forgotten how horrifically bloody the mob rule of the French Revolution was; jumping into bed with them at that point would have been difficult to stomach indeed.

• I just mentally equated Washington/Hamilton with Dumbledore/Harry. Not a perfect analogy, but now it cannot be unthought. I suspect this is no accident b/c one of the best things about LMM aside from his musical genius is that he's basically as big a nerd as many of his fans.

Ok, your reward for making it to the bottom of the page is my major internet find for the week: the annotated lyrics of the entire Hamilton album over at Genius. This. This is exactly what I've been looking for to feed my Hamilton mania. And it's endorsed by LMM himself, who occasionally drops in to clarify and confirm. * fangirling intensifies *

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Statistically, you have almost no chance of getting in to see the uber-hyped musical Hamilton, but you should absolutely get hands on the soundtrack. I was skeptical at first--hip hop and rap are nowhere near my musical comfort zone, but musicals in general are pretty smack dab in the middle so I had to give it a try.

It'd be pretty bad form to recommend music and then claim to have terrible musical taste, so lets just say I'm . . . unadventurous when it comes to music. I can listen to the same stuff forever (this actually comes in handy for retaining my sanity when it comes to kids music) so I've listened to precious few new things for the past . . . decade? But I kept hearing all the hype and wondered if it was actually that good. (Spoiler: it totally is)

The source material for the musical, Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton, finally showed up from the library and I am so excited! I'm not a huge biography reader in general, but after falling in love with the musical I'll snap it up.

It's easy to see why Hamilton's life inspired the brilliant Lin Manuel Miranda, and I'm consistently impressed at how well the musical condenses the drama and emotion of the founding father's life. By now I've memorized the lyrics well enough to see familiar phrases waving at me from Chernow's prose, and in the back of my mind the soundtrack pounds through the corresponding scenes in the book quite satisfyingly.

There's plenty of interesting deviations between the musical and the biography, but so far they've only been either implied or minor facts, not anything to change the spirit of the narrative.

From the musical I had the impression that the three Schuyler sisters were Philip Schuyler's only children (and Angelica claims specifically that her father has no sons), but it turns out he had 8 children who survived to adulthood, three of them sons. The edit makes sense though: Angelica, Eliza, and Peggy were the oldest children; their brothers were quite a bit younger. The aura of heiresses also adds to the drama of the musical's romance.

Another notable change is that Angelica was already married before either sister met Hamilton. (Fun Fact! Eliza was the only one of the 5 sisters who didn't elope.) This changes the courtship dynamic and eliminates the tragically beautiful song Satisfied, but the relationships between Hamilton and the two sisters seems pretty faithful to Chernow's account.

I'm not going to bother outlining every deviation between biography and musical, but I may follow up with any that I find noteworthy. Not liveblogging the read, but not bothering to finish the lengthy thing before I write about it.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple

Getting back on the writing horse! I missed a few days because of a family visit, but the important part is starting back up again.

Next month's book club read is Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple. I started it up with absolutely zero idea what it was about and stepped straight into the twilight zone. Quick background: We're relatively recent transplants to the Seattle suburbs and the Gaffer has worked for two of the big tech firms up here. Where'd You Go, Bernadette? takes place in Seattle and out of nowhere the novel's opening hit viscerally, terrifyingly close to home.

Within the first few chapters we're mired deep into the high-stress tech industry, vicious private school parent politics and the hazards of blackberry vines. Although the setting is several miles away from us and several social strata higher, it feels like turning over a pleasant log and finding a bunch of maggots. But worse, because I actually enjoy entomology way more than stressful social situations.

*Deep breath* But other than the gut punch of the opening, I'm really enjoying the book. The characters are vibrant, the plot is intricate and delicately crafted, and its overall a fun read. Four stars.

Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis

I didn't think it was possible, but it turns out there's a C.S. Lewis book I don't like. Pilgrim's Regress is the first novel Lewis wrote after converting to Christianity and is an allegory for his faith journey up to that point.

Before roasting this particular novel, I have to say that I absolutely love Lewis' writings. His fiction and nonfiction have been central to my own developing faith and whenever I feel spiritually dry or lost, I return to Lewis.* Narnia, Til We Have Faces, and his Space Trilogy are on my list of "books I will re-read occasionally until I die".

But there's a reason Pilgrim's Regress is rarely mentioned among Lewis' other works. For one thing, it's racist af. I usually look at a book and author's cultural surroundings and tend to gloss over racist references to see the larger message, but no. You cannot use "brown girls" as your allegory for base lust. Right. Out. And it only goes downhill from there; I can't even bring myself to repeat some of the phrases he gets stuck using when starting from that point. If your writing is so racist that it makes my privileged, protected, very white self uncomfortable, it's really bad.

Past the racism though, PR is largely a failed allegory, which is something Lewis himself admits in the book's afterward. Its modeled after Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and also feels very much like George MacDonald's Phantastes (not a coincidence, I'm sure). I wasn't particularly fond of either book, so its not surprising that this one failed to impress me as well. I did see many ideas and themes that show up in his later writings, but you could easily skip this novel and miss none of Lewis' most beautiful, enduring ideas.

I've often heard that Lewis and Tolkien, who were close friends, had a bit of a falling out over the Narnia series, because Tolkien disliked allegory and wasn't impressed with the series. That always makes me feel like a kid in the middle of a divorce, but if Lewis started work on Narnia soon after PR, I can more easily imagine why Tolkien wasn't enthusiastic. "Another allegory, Jack? Will this one also include bland, obviously named characters and a rather rambling, obscure journey across a dull landscape?"

I almost gave the book up a third of the way in, which is very rare for me. But I did get a reward for sticking it out til the end: Lewis' afterward to the third edition is brilliant. Written 10 years later, it offers an explanation and redemption of the novel's more obscure points and has several quotable lines in its own right.

*Ok, so technically the first place I turn should be the Bible, but due to a myriad of personal and spiritual failings, I have a hard time reading Scripture all on my own. I get there eventually, but usually need a bit of a running start.

GFCF Baking

I absolutely love to bake. Cookies, bread, muffins, pancakes, biscuits, popovers, anything and everything. So at the prospect of going GFCF it was only a matter of when, not if, I would figure out how to adjust making my favorites.

I knew from browsing Pinterest that the internet was a great source for ideas and recipes of various and unknown quality, but when the Gaffer found The How Can it Be Gluten Free Cookbook from America's Test Kitchen it was the key to cracking the code. I fell in love with the Best Recipe series from ATK several years ago because of their analytical, scientific approach to kitchen alchemy, and sure enough their GF cookbook is exactly what you need for a strong start in GFCF baking.

The first section provides the basic science of baking with gluten, the challenges presented in removing it from traditional recipes, and their solutions. There's tips for adjusting your existing recipes, analysis and reviews of commercial GF flour blends, and because ATK thought they could do better than any of them, a recipe for blending your own mix. Then there's reviews of various GF sandwich bread, pastas and an overview of the various ingredients you might need on hand for GF cooking and baking.  What's with all the different flours? And what in the world are xantham gum and pysllium husk? Your answers are here.

Then they get into the recipes. I've had excellent results with their peanut butter cookies and banana bread so far, just substituting coconut oil for butter to make them caesin free as well.

It is important to note that it's not a GFCF cookbook, and dairy ingredients are present in most recipes. The authors dedicate one page to suggestions for other dietary restrictions including dairy, but they fail to mention substituting coconut oil for butter, which has worked really well for me. Almond and coconut milk have worked so far, but I haven't even tried to work out a cheese substitute yet. Kind of suspect there isn't a good one, unfortunately.

This weekend I had slightly less success with their chocolate chip cookies and blueberry muffins. Both were tasty, but not quite excellent. I've been using a different flour blend and had to experiment with non-dairy yogurt, so I suspect one or two more tries will give better results.

Overall, I highly recommend The How Can it Be Gluten Free Cookbook. I'll try to post occasionally with which recipes work and which ones require a little more tweaking.